Fantasy & Science Fiction v014n05 (1958 05) (PDF)

THE PRIZE OF PERIL
by Robert Sbeckley

Fritz Leiber
Avram Davidson
Theodore R. Cogswell
Gordon R. Dickson

EVERY STORY
/Vi tAid i4Si4e NEW

The Prize of Peril by Robert sheckley 5

Thimgs by Theodore r. cogswell 20

Gorilla Suit by JOHN shepley 31

Up the Close and Doun the Stair by avram davidson 39
A Matter of Technique by cordon r. dickson 56

The Duel by JOAN vatsek 69

The Science Stage (<* department') by william Morrison 82
Over the River to What’s-Her-Name’s House

by WILL STANTON 84

Have Your Hatreds Ready by Brian w. aldiss 90

. . . and Curiouser by Ron goulart 105

Recommended Reading (d department)

by ANTHONY BOUCHER 112

Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee by fritz leiber 116

In Memoriam: Henry Kuttner {verse) by Karen Anderson 130

"Coming Next Month" appears on page 111

COVER PAINTING BY EMSH

{illustrating "The Prize of Peril")

Joseph W, Ferman, publisher Anthony Boucher, editor

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 14, No. 5, Whole No, 84, MAY,
1938. Published monthly by Mercury Press, Inc., at 534 copy. Annual subscription, $4.00
in U. S. and Possessions, Canada and the Pan-American Union; $3.00 in all other countries.
Publication office. Concord, N. H. Editorial and general offices, 327 Madison Avenue, New
York 22, N. Y, Entered as second class matter at the Post Office at Concord, N. H. under
the Act of March 5, 1879. Printed in U. S. A. © 1938 by Mercury Press, Inc. All rights,
including translation into other languages, reserved. Submissions must be accompanied by
stamped, self-addresed envelopes; the Publisher assumes no responsibility for return of
unsolicited manuscripts.

J. Francis McComas, advisory editor Robert P. Mills, managing editor

George Salter, art editor Norma Levine, editorial assistant

A re the tales of strange human pow-
ers false? Can the mysterious feats
erformed by the mystics of the Orient
e explained away as only illusions? Is
there an intangible bond with the uni-
verse beyond which draws mankind
on? Does a mighty Cosmic intelligence
from the reaches of space ebb and flow
through the deep recesses of the mind,
forming a river of wisdom which can
carry men and women to the heights
of personal achievement?

Have You Had These
Experiences?

. . . that unmistakable feeling that jou
have taken the wrong course of action,
that you have violated some inner, un-
expressed, better judgement? The sud-
den realization that the silent whisper-
ings of self are cautioning you to keep
your own counsel— not to speak words
on the tip of your tongue in the pres-
ence of another. That something which
pushes you forward when you hesitate,
or restrains you when you are apt to
make a wrong move.

These urges are the subtle influence
which when understood and directed
has made thousands of men and women
masters of their lives. There IS a source
of intelligence within you as natural as
your senses of sight and hearing, and
more dependable, which you are NOT
using now! Challenge this statement!
Dare the Rosicrucians to reveal the
functions of this Cosmic mind and its
great possibilities to you.

Let This Free Book Explain

Take this infinite power into your
partnership. You can use it in a rational
and practical way without interference
with your religious beliefs or personal
affairs. The Rosicrucians, a world -wide
philosophical movement, invite you to
write today for your Free copy of the
fascinating book, "The Mastery of Life’*
which explains further. Address your
request to Scribe S.Q.P.

The ROSICRUCIANS

(AMORC)

San Jose, California

An action-packed suspense thriller . ^ . an acute satiric extrapolation
of current trends in TV programing .. .a brief and bitter essay on man
— Robert Sheckley has managed adroitly to write all three of these at
once, in cme of his 7nost forceful stories to date.

The Prize of Peril

by ROBERT SHECKLEY

Raeder lifted his head cautiously
above the window sill. He saw the
fire escape, and below it a narrow
alley. There was a weatherbeaten
baby carriage in the alley, and three
garbage cans. As he watched, a
black-sleeved arm moved from be-
hind the furthest can, with some-
thing shiny in its fist. Raeder
ducked down. A bullet smashed
through the window above his
head and punctured the ceiling,
showering him with plaster.

Now he knew about the alley.
It was guarded, just like the door.

He lay at full length on the
cracked linoleum, staring at the
bullet hole in the ceiling, listening
to the sounds outside the door. He
was a tall man with bloodshot eyes
and a two-day stubble. Grime and
fatigue had etched lines into his
face. Fear had touched his features,
tightening a muscle here and
twitching a nerve there. The results
were startling. His face had char-

acter now, for it was reshaped by
the expectation of death.

There was a gunman in the
alley and two on the stairs. He was
trapped. He was dead.

Sure, Raeder thought, he still
moved and breathed; but that was
only because of death’s inefficiency.
Death would take care of him in a
few minutes. Death would poke
holes in his face and body, artisti-
cally dab his clothes with blood,
arrange his limbs in some grotesque
position of the graveyard ballet...

Raeder bit his lip sharply. He
wanted to live. There had to be a
way.

He rolled onto his stomach and
surveyed the dingy cold-water
apartment into which the killers
had driven him. It was a perfect
little one-room coffin. It had a
door, which was watched, and a
fire escape, which was watched.
And it had a tiny windowless bath-
room.

5

6

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

He crawled to the bathroom and
stood up. There was a ragged hole
in the ceiling, almost four inches
wide. If he could enlarge it, crawl
through into the apartment
above . . .

He heard a muffled thud. The
killers were impatient. They were
beginning to break down the door.

He studied the hole in the ceil-
ing. No use even considering it.
He could never enlarge it in time.

They were smashing against the
door, grunting each time they
struck. Soon the lock would tear
out, or the hinges would pull out
of the rotting wood. The door
would go down, and the two blank-
faced men would enter, dusting off
their jackets . . .

But surely someone would help
him! He took the tiny television
set from his pocket. The picture
was blurred, and he didn’t bother
to adjust it. The audio was clear
and precise.

He listened to the well-modu-
lated voice of Mike Terry address-
ing his vast audience.

. . terrible spot!* Terry was say-
ing. *'Yes fol/^s, Jim Raeder is in a
truly terrible predicament. He had
been hiding, yoiill remember, in
a third-rate Broadway hotel under
an assumed name. It seemed safe
enough. But the bellhop recognized
him, and gave that information to
the Thompson gang!*

The door creaked under repeated
blows. Raeder clutched the little
television set and listened.

**]im Raeder just managed to es-
cape from the hotel! Closely pur-
sued, he entered a brownstone at
one fifty-six West End Avenue.
His intention was to go over the
roofs. And it might have worked,
fol\s, it just might have worked.
But the roof door was lodged. It
lool^ed like the end .... But Raeder
found that apartment seven was un-
occupied and unlocked. He en-
tered..!*

Terry paused for emphasis, then
cried: **—and now he*s trapped
there, trapped likje a rat in a cage!
The Thompson gang is breathing
down the door! The fire escape is
guarded! Our camera crew, situ-
ated in a nearby building, is giving
you a closeup now. Loo\, folks,
just look! Is there no hope for Jim
Raeder?**

Is there no hope, Raeder silendy
echoed, perspiration pouring from
him as he stood in the dark, sti-
fling little bathroom, listening to
the steady thud against the door.

**Wait a minute!** Mike Terry
cried. "Hang on, Jim Raeder, hang
on a little longer. Perhaps there is
hope! I have an urgent call from
one of our viewers, a call on the
Good Samaritan Line! Here*s some-
one who thinks he can help you,
Jim. Are you listening, Jim
Raeder?**

Raeder waited, and heard the
hinges tearing out of rotten wood.

"Go right ahead, sir*,* said Mike
Terry. "What is your name, sir?**

"Er— Felix Bartholemow!*

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

7

**Dont be nervous, Mr, Barthole-
mow. Go right ahead**

**Well, OK. Mr. Raeder** said an
old man’s shaking voice, '7 used
to live at one five six West End
Avenue. Same apartment you* re
trapped in, Mr. Raeder— facti Look,,
that bathroom has got a window,
Mr. Raeder. lt*s been painted over,
but it has got a—**

Raeder pushed the television set
into his pocket. He located the
outlines of the window and kicked.
Glass shattered, and daylight
poured startlingly in. He cleared
the jagged sill and quickly peered
down.

Below was a long drop to a con-
crete courtyard.

The hinges tore free. He heard
the door opening. Quickly Raeder
climbed through the window, hung
by his fingertips for a moment,
and dropped.

The shock was stunning. Grogg-
ily he stood up. A face appeared at
the bathroom window.

“Tough luck,” said the man, lean-
ing out and taking careful aim
with a snub-nosed .38.

At that moment a smoke bomb
exploded inside the bathroom.

The killer’s shot went wide. He
turned, cursing. More smoke bombs
burst in the courtyard, obscuring
Raeder’s figure.

He could hear Mike Terry’s fren-
zied voice over the TV set in his
pocket. *‘Now run for itl** Terry
was screaming. "'Run, Jim Raeder,
run for your life. Run now, while

the killers* eyes are filled with
smoke* And thank Good Samaritan
Sarah Winters, of three four one
two Edgar Street, Brockton, Mass.,
for donating five smoke bombs and
employing the services of a man
to throw them!**

In a quieter voice, Terry con-
tinued: *'You*ve saved a man's life
today, Mrs. Winters. Would you
tell our audience how it — ”

Raeder wasn’t able to hear any
more. He was running through the
smoke-filled courtyard, past clothes
lines, into the open street.

He walked down 63d Street,
slouching to minimize his height,
staggering slighdy from exertion,
dizzy from lack of food and sleep.

“Hey you!”

Raeder turned. A middle-aged
woman was sitting on the steps of
a brownstone, frowning at him.

“You’re Raeder, aren’t you? The
one they’re trying to kill?”

Raeder started to walk away.

“Come inside here, Raeder,” the
woman said.

Perhaps it was a trap. But Raeder
knew that he had to depend upon
the generosity and good-hearted-
ness of the people. He was their
representative, a projection of them-
selves, an average guy in trouble.
Without them, he was lost. With
them, nothing could harm him.

Trust in the people, Mike Terry
had told him. They’ll never let you
down.

He followed the woman into her

8

parlor. She told him to sit down
and left the room, returning almost
immediately with a plate of stew.
She stood watching him while he
ate, as one would watch an ape in
the zoo eat peanuts.

Two children came out of the
kitchen and stared at him. Three
overalled men came out of the
bedroom and focused a television
camera on him. There was a big
television set in the parlor. As he
gulped his food, Raeder watched
the image of Mike Terry, and
listened to the man’s strong, sincere,
worried voice.

**There he is, folks,** Terry was
saying. **There*s Jim Raeder now,
eating his first square meal in two
days. Our camera crews have really
been worthing to cover this for you!
Thanks, boys .... Folios, Jim Raeder
has been given a brief sanctuary by
Mrs, Velma 0 *DeU, of three forty-
three Sixty-Third Street. Than\
you. Good Samaritan O’Dell! It’s
really wonderful, how people from
all wallas of life have tal{en Jim
Raeder to their hearts!**

“You better hurry,” Mrs. O’Dell
said.

“Yes ma’am,” Raeder said.

“I don’t want no gunplay in my
apartment.”

“I’m almost finished, ma’am.”

One of the children asked,
“Aren’t they going to kill him?”

“Shut up,” said Mrs. O’Dell.

“Yer Jimf* chanted Mike Terry,
** you’d better hurry. Your fillers
aren’t far behind. They aren’t stupid

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

men, Jim, Vicious, warped, insane
^yes! But not stupid. They’re fol-
lowing a trail of blood--blood from
your torn hand, Jim!”

Raeder hadn’t realized until now
that he’d cut his hand on the win-
dow sill.

“Here, I’ll bandage that,” Mrs.
O’Dell said. Raeder stood up and
let her bandage his hand. Then she
gave him a brown jacket and a
gray slouch hat.

“My husband’s stuff,” she said.

”He has a disguise, folks!” Mike
Terry cried delightedly. ’’This is
something new! A disguise! With
seven hours to go until he’s safe!”

“Now get out of here,” Mrs.
O’Dell said.

“I’m going, ma’am,” Raeder said.
“Thanks.”

“I think you’re stupid,” she said.
“I think you’re stupid to be in-
volved in this.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“It just isn’t worth it.”

Raeder thanked her and left. He
walked to Broadway, caught a sub-
way to 59th Street, then an uptown
local to 86th. There he bought a
newspaper and changed for the
Manhasset thru-express.

He glanced at his watch. He had
six and a half hours to go.

The subway roared under Man-
hattan. Raeder dozed, his bandaged
hand concealed under the news-
paper, the hat pulled over his face.
Had he been recognized yet? Had
he shaken the Thompson gang?

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

9

Or was someone telephoning them
now?

Dreamily he wondered if he had
escaped death. Or was he still a
cleverly animated corpse, moving
around because of death’s ineffi-
ciency? (My dear, death is so lag-
gard these days! Jim Raeder walked
about for hours after he died, and
actually answered people’s ques-
tions before he could be decently
buried!)

Racder’s eyes snapped open. He
had dreamed something . . . un-
pleasant. He couldn’t remember
what.

He closed his eyes again and re-
membered, with mild astonishment,
a time when he had been in no
trouble.

That was two years ago. He had
been a big, pleasant young man
working as a truck driver’s helper.
He had no talents. He was too
modest to have dreams.

The tight-faced litde truck driver
had the dreams for him. “Why not
try for a television show, Jim? I
would if I had your looks. They
like nice average guys with nothing
much on the ball. As contestants.
Everybody likes guys like that.
Why not look into it?”

So he had looked into it. The
owner of the local television store
had explained it further.

“You see, Jim, the public is sick
of highly trained athletes with their
trick reflexes and their professional
courage. Who can feel for guys like
that? Who can identify? People

want to watch exciting things, sure.
But not when some joker is mak-
ing it his business for fifty thousand
a year. That’s why organized sports
are in a slump. That’s why the
thrill shows are booming.”

“I see,” said Raeder.

“Six years ago, Jim, Congress
passed the Voluntary Suicide Act.
Those old senators talked a lot
about free will and self-determin-
ism at the time. But that’s all crap.
You know what the Act really
means? It means that amateurs can
risk their lives for the big loot, not
just professionals. In the old days
you had to be a professional boxer
or footballer or hockey player if
you wanted your brains beaten out
legally for money. But now that
opportunity is open to ordinary
people like you, Jim.”

“I see,” Raeder said again.

“It’s a marvelous opportunity.
Take you. You’re no better than
anyone, Jim. Anything you can do,
anyone can do. You’re average. I
think the thrill shows would go
for you.”

Raeder permitted himself to
dream. Television shows looked
like a sure road to riches for a
pleasant young fellow with no par-
ticular talent or training. He wrote
a letter to a show called Hazard
and enclosed a photograph of him-
self.

Hazard was interested in him.
The JBC network investigated, and
found that he was average enough
to satisfy the wariest viewer. His

10

parentage and affiliations were
checked. At last he was summoned
to New York, and interviewed by
Mr. Moulian.

Moulian was dark and intense,
and chewed gum as he talked.
“You’ll do,” he snapped. “But not
for Hazard. You’ll appear on Spills.
It’s a half-hour daytime show on
Channel Three.”

“Gee,” said Raeder,

“Don’t thank me. There’s a thou-
sand dollars if you win or place
second, and a consolation prize of
a hundred dollars if you lose. But
that’s not important.”

“No sir.”

** Spills is a little show. The JBC
network uses it as a testing ground.
First- and second-place winners on
Spills move on to Emergency. The
prizes are much bigger on Emer-
gency:'

“I know they are, sir.”

“And if you do well on Emer-
gency there are the first-class thrill
shows, like Hazard and Under-
water Perils, with their nationwide
coverage and enormous prizes. And
then comes the really big time.
How far you go is up to you.”

“I’ll do my best, sir,” Raeder
said.

Moulian stopped chewing gum
for a moment and said, almost rev-
erently, “You can do it, Jim. Just
remember. You’re the people, and
the people can do anything.”

The way he said it made Raeder
feel momentarily sorry for Mr,
Moulian, who was dark and frizzy-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

haired and pop-eyed, and was ob-
viously not the people.

They shook hands. Then Raeder
signed a paper absolving the JBC
of all responsibility should he lose
his life, limbs or reason during the
contest. And he signed another
paper exercising his rights under
the Voluntary Suicide Act. The
law required this, and it was a
mere formality.

In three weeks, he appeared on
Spills.

The program followed the classic
form of the automobile race.
Untrained drivers climbed into
powerful American and European
competition cars and raced over a
murderous twenty-mile course. Rae-
der was shaking with fear as he slid
his big Maserati into the wrong
gear and took off.

The race was a screaming, tire-
burning nightmare. Raeder stayed
back, letting the early leaders smash
themselves up on the counter-
banked hairpin turns. He crept into
third place when a Jaguar in front
of him swerved against an Alfa-
Romeo, and the two cars roared
into a plowed field. Raeder gunned
for second place on the last three
miles, but couldn’t find passing
room. An S-curve almost took him,
but he fought the car back on the
road, still holding third. Then the
lead driver broke a crankshaft in
the final fifty yards, and Jim ended
in second place.

He was now a thousand dollars
ahead. He received four fan letters,

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

11

and a lady in Oshkosh sent him a
pair of argyles. He was invited to
appear on Emergency.

Unlike the others, Emergency
was not a competition-type pro-
gram. It stressed individual initia-
tive. For the show, Raeder was
knocked out with a non-habit-
forming narcotic. He awoke in the
cockpit of a small airplane, cruising
on autopilot at ten thousand feet.
His fuel gauge showed nearly
empty. He had no parachute. He
was supposed to land the plane.

Of course, he had never flown
before.

He experimented gingerly with
the controls, remembering that last
week’s participant had recovered
consciousness in a submarine, had
opened the wrong valve, and had
drowned.

Thousands of viewers watched
spellbound as this average man, a
man just like themselves, struggled
with the situation just as they
would do. Jim Raeder was them.
Anything he could do, they could
do. He was representative of the
people.

Raeder managed to bring the
ship down in some semblance of a
landing. He flipped over a few
times, but his seat belt held. And
the engine, contrary to expectation,
did not burst into flames.

He staggered out with two
broken ribs, three thousand dollars,
and a chance, when he healed, to
appear on Torero.

At hast, a first-class thrill show!

Torero paid ten thousand dollars.
All you had to do was kill a black
Miura bull with a sword, just like
a real trained matador.

The fight was held in Madrid,
since bullfighting was still illegal
in the United States. It was nation-
ally televised.

Raeder had a good cuadrilla.
They liked the big, slow-moving
American. The picadors really
leaned into their lances, trying to
slow the bull for him. The band-
erillcros tried to run the beast off
his feet before driving in their
banderillas. And the second mata-
dor, a mournful man from Algi-
ceras, almost broke the bull’s neck
with fancy capework.

But when all was said and done
it was Jim Raeder on the sand,
a red muleta clumsily gripped in
his left hand, a sword in his right,
facing a ton of black, blood-streak-
ed, wide-horned bull.

Someone was shouting, “Try for
the lung, hombre. Don’t be a hero,
stick him in the lung.” But Jim
only knew what the technical ad-
viser in New York had told him:
Aim with the sword and go in
over the horns.

Over he went. The sword
bounced off bone, and the bull
tossed him over its back. He stood
up, miraculously ungouged, took
another sword and went over the
horns again with his eyes closed.
The god who protects children and
fools must have been watching, for
the sword slid in like a needle

12

through butter, and the bull looked
startled, stared at him unbeliev-
ingly, and dropped like a deflated
balloon.

They paid him ten thousand
dollars, and his broken collar bone
healed in practically no time. He
received twenty-three fan letters,
including a passionate invitation
from a girl in Atlantic City,
which he ignored. And they asked
him if he wanted to appear on
another show.

He had lost some of his inno-
cence. He was now fully aware that
he had been almost killed for
pocket money. The big loot lay
ahead. Now he wanted to be al-
most killed for something worth-
while.

So he appeared on Underwater
Perils, sponsored by Fairlady’s Soap.
In face mask, respirator, weighted
belt, flippers and knife, he slipped
into the warm waters of the Carilv
bean with four other contestants,
followed by a cage-proteaed cam-
era crew. The idea was to locate
and bring up a treasure which the
sponsor had hidden there.

Mask diving isn’t especially haz-
ardous. But the sponsor had added
some frills for public interest. The
area was sown with giant clams,
moray eels, sharks of several species,
giant octopuses, poison coral, and
other dangers of the deep.

It was a stirring contest. A man
from Florida found the treasure in
a deep crevice, but a moray eel
found him. Another diver took the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

treasure, and a shark took him.
The brilliant blue-green water be-
came cloudy with blood, which
photographed well on color TV.
The treasure slipped to the bottom
and Raeder plunged after it, pop-
ping an eardrum in the process.
He plucked it from the coral, jet-
tisoned his weighted belt and made
for the surface. Thirty feet from
the top he had to fight another
diver for the treasure.

They feinted back and forth with
their knives. The man struck, slash-
ing Raeder across the chest. But
Raeder, with the self-possession of
an old contestant, dropped his knife
and tore the man’s respirator out
of his mouth.

That did it. Raeder surfaced, and
presented the treasure at the stand-
by boat. It turned out to be a pack-
age of Fairlady’s Soap— “The Great-
est Treasure of All.”

That netted him twenty-two
thousand dollars in cash and prizes,
and three hundred and eight fan let-
ters, and an interesting proposition
from a girl in Macon, which he
seriously considered. He received
free hospitalization for his knife
slash and burst eardrum, and in-
jections for coral infection.

But best of all, he was invited
to appear on the biggest of the
thrill shows. The Prize of Peril,

And that was when the real
trouble began ....

The subway came to a stop, jolt-
ing him out of his reverie. Raeder
pushed back his hat and observed.

TKE PRIZE OF PERIL

13

across the aisle, a man staring at
him and whispering to a stout
woman. Had they recognized him?

He stood up as soon as the doors
opened, and glanced at his watch.
He had five hours to go.

At the Manhasset station he step-
ped into a taxi and told the driver
to take him to New Salem.

“New Salem?” the driver asked,
looking at him in the rear vision
mirror.

“That’s right.”

The driver snapped on his radio.
“Fare to New Salem. Yep, that’s
right. New Salem

They drove off. Raeder frowned,
wondering if it had been a signal.
It was perfectly usual for taxi driv-
ers to report to their dispatchers,
of course. But something about the
man’s voice...

“Let me off here,” Raeder said.

He paid the driver and began
walking down a narrow country
road that curved through sparse
woods. The trees were too small
and too widely separated for shel-
ter. Raeder walked on, looking for
a place to hide.

There was a heavy truck ap-
proaching. He kept on walking,
pulling his hat low on his fore-
head. But as the truck drew near,
he heard a voice from the television
set in his pocket. It cried, ** Watch
outr

He flung himself into the ditch.
The truck careened past, narrowly
missing him, and screeched to a

stop. The driver was shouting,
“There he goes! Shoot, Harry,
shoot!”

Bullets clipped leaves from the
trees as Raeder sprinted into the
woods.

“//r happened again T Mike
Terry was saying, his voice high-
pitched with excitement, “/’w
afraid Jim Raeder let himself be
lulled into a false sense of security.
You cant do that, Jim! Not with
your life at sta\e! Not with killers
pursuing you! Be careful, Jim, you
still have four and a half hours to
gor

The driver was saying, “Claude,
Harry, go around with the truck.
We got him boxed.”

'*Theyve got you boxed, Jim
Raeder!" Mike Terry cried. "But
they haven t got you yet! And you
can than\ Good Samaritan Susy
Peters of twelve Elm Street, South
Orange, Neui Jersey, for that warn-
ing shout just when the truc\ was
bearing down on you. We*ll have
little Susy on stage in just a mo-
ment .... Loo\, foll(s, our studio
helicopter has arrived on the scene.
Now you can see Jim Raeder run-
ning, and the \illers pursuing, sur-
rounding him . .

Raeder ran through a hundred
yards of woods and found himself
on a concrete highway, with open
woods beyond. One of the killers
was trotting through the woods be-
hind him. The truck had driven
to a connecting road, and was now
a mile away, coming toward him.

14

A car was approaching from the
other direction. Raeder ran into
the highway, waving frantically.
The car came to a stop.

“Hurry!” cried the blond young
woman driving it.

Raeder dived in. The woman
made a U-turn on the highway. A
bullet smashed through the wind-
shield. She stamped on the acceler-
ator, almost running down the lone
killer who stood in the way.

The car surged away before the
truck was within firing range.

Raeder leaned back and shut his
eyes tightly. The woman concen-
trated on her driving, watching for
the truck in her rear-vision mirror.

happened again T cried Mike
Terry, his voice ecstatic. **Jim
Raeder has been pluc\ed again from
the jaws of death, than\s to Good
Samaritan Janice Morrow of four
three three Lexington Avenue, New
Yor\ City, Did you ever see any-
thing lil{e it, folks? The way Miss
Morrow drove through a fusillade
of bullets and plucked Jim Raeder
from the mouth of doom I Later
we'll interview Miss Morrow and
get her reactions. Now, while Jim
Raeder speeds away— perhaps to
safety, perhaps to further peril—
we'll have a short announcement
from our sponsor. Don't go awayl
Jim's got four hours and ten min-
utes until he's safe. Anything can
happen!"

“OK,” the girl said. “We’re off
the air now. Raeder, what in the
hell is the matter with you?”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Eh?” Raeder asked. The girl
was in her early twenties. She
looked efficient, attractive, untouch-
able. Raeder noticed that she had
good features, a trim figure. And
he noticed that she seemed angry.

“Miss,” he said, “I don’t know
how to thank you for—”

“Talk straight,” Janice Morrow
said. “I’m no Good Samaritan. I’m
employed by the JBC network.”

“So the program had me res-
cued!”

“Cleverly reasoned,” she said.

“But why?”

“Look, this is an expensive show,
Raeder. We have to turn in a good
performance. If our rating slips,
we’ll all be in the street selling
candy apples. And you aren’t co-
operating.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you’re terrible,” the girl
said bitterly. “You’re a flop, a fi-
asco. Are you trying to commit
suicide? Haven’t you learned any-
thing about survival?”

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“The Thompsons could have had
you a dozen times by now. We told
them to take it easy, stretch it out.
But it’s like shooting a clay pigeon
six feet tall. The Thompsons are
cooperating, but they can only fake
so far. If I hadn’t come along,
they’d have had to kill you— air-
time or not.”

Raeder stared at her, wondering
how such a pretty girl could talk
that way. She glanced at him, then
quickly looked back to the road.

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

15

“Don’t give me that look!” she
said. ''You chose to risk your life
for money, buster. And plenty of
money! You knew the score. Don’t
act like some innocent little grocer
who finds the nasty hoods are after
him. That’s a different plot.”

“I know,” Raeder said.

“If you can’t live well, at least
try to die well.”

“You don’t mean that,” Raeder
said.

“Don’t be too sure .... You’ve
got three hours and forty minutes
until the end of the show. If you
can stay alive, fine. The boodle’s
yours. But if you can’t at least try
to give them a run for the money.”

Raeder nodded, staring intently
at her.

“In a few moments we’re back
on the air. I develop engine trouble,
let you off. The Thompsons go all
out now. They kill you when and
if they can, as soon as they can.
Understand?”

“Yes,” Raeder said. “If I make it,
can I see you some time?”

She bit her lip angrily. “Are
you trying to kid me?”

“No. I’d like to see you again.
May I?”

She looked at him curiously. “I
don’t know. Forget it. We’re almost
on. I think your best bet is the
woods to the right. Ready?”

“Yes. Where can I get in touch
with you? Afterward, I mean.”

“Oh, Raeder, you aren’t paying
attention. Go through the woods
until you find a washed-out ravine.

It isn’t much, but it’ll give you
some cover.”

“Where can I get in touch with
you?” Raeder asked again.

“I’m in the Manhattan telephone
book.” She stopped the car. “OK,
Raeder, start running.”

He opened the door.

“Wait.” She leaned over and
kissed him on the lips. “Good luck,
you idiot. Call me if you make it.”

And then he was on foot, run-
ning into the woods.

He ran through birch and pine,
past an occasional split-level house
with staring faces at the big pic-
ture window. Some occupant of
those houses must have called the
gang, for they were close behind
him when he reached the washed
out little ravine. Those quiet, man-
nerly, law-abiding people didn’t
want him to escape, Raeder thought
sadly. They wanted to see a killing.
Or perhaps they wanted to see him
narrowly escape a killing.

It came to the same thing, really.

He entered the ravine, burrowed
into the thick underbrush and lay
still. The Thompsons appeared on
both ridges, moving slowly, watch-
ing for any movement. Raeder held
his breath as they came parallel to
him.

He heard the quick explosion of
a revolver. But the killer had only
shot a squirrel. It squirmed for a
moment, then lay still.

Lying in the underbrush, Raeder
heard the studio helicopter over-

16

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

head. He wondered if any cameras
were focused on him. It was pos-
sible. And if someone were watch-
ing, perhaps some Good Samaritan
would help.

So looking upward, toward the
helicopter, Raeder arranged his face
in a reverent expression, clasped his
hands and prayed. He prayed si-
lently, for the audience didn’t like
religious ostentation. But his lips
moved. That was every man’s
privilege.

And a real prayer was on his
lips. Once, a lipreader in the audi-
ence had detected a fugitive pre-
tending to pray, but actually just
reciting multiplication tables. No
help for that man!

Raeder finished his prayer. Glanc-
ing at his watch, he saw that he
had nearly two hours to go.

And he didn’t want to die! It
wasn’t worth it, no matter how
much they paid! He must have
been crazy, absolutely insane to
agree to such a thing ....

But he knew that wasn’t true.
And he remembered just how sane
he had been.

One week ago he had been on
the Prize of Peril stage, blinking in
the spotlight, and Mike Terry had
shaken his hand.

“Now Mr. Raeder,” Terry had
said solemnly, “do you understand
the rules of the game you arc about
to play?”

Raeder nodded.

“If you accept, Jim Raeder, you

will be a hunted man for a week.
Killers will follow you, Jim. Train-
ed killers, men wanted by the law
for other crimes, granted immunity
for this single killing under the
Voluntary Suicide Aa. They will
be trying to kill you, Jim. Do you
understand?”

“I understand,” Raeder said. He
also understood the two hundred
thousand dollars he would receive
if he could live out the week.

“I ask you again, Jim Raeder.
We force no man to play for stakes
of death.”

“I want to play,” Raeder said.

Mike Terry turned to the audi-
ence. “Ladies and gendemen, I
have here a copy of an exhaustive
psychological test which an im-
partial psychological testing firm
made on Jim Raeder at our request.
Copies will be sent to anyone who
desires them for twenty-five cents
to cover the cost of mailing. The
test shows that Jim Raeder is sane,
well-balanced, and fully responsible
in every way.” He turned to Raeder.

“Do you still want to enter the
contest, Jim?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Very well!” cried Mike Terry.
“Jim Raeder, meet your would-be
killers!”

The Thompson gang moved on
stage, booed by the audience.

“Look at them, folks,” said Mike
Terry, with undisguised contempt.
“Just look at them! Antisocial, thor-
oughly vicious, completely amoral.
These men have no code but the

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

17

criminars warped code, no honor
but the honor of the cowardly hired
killer. They are doomed men,
doomed by our society which will
not sanction their activities for
long, fated to an early and unglam-
orous death.”

The audience shouted enthusias-
tically.

“What have you to say, Claude
Thompson?” Terry asked.

Claude, the spokesman of the
Thompsons, stepped up to the mi-
crophone. He was a thin, clean-
shaven man, conservatively dressed.

“I figure,” Claude Thompson
said hoarsely, “I figure we’re no
worse than anybody. I mean, like
soldiers in a war, they kill. And
look at the graft in government,
and the unions. Everybody’s got
their graft.”

That was Thompson’s tenuous
code. But how quickly, with what
precision Mike Terry destroyed the
killer’s rationalizations I Terry’s
questions pierced straight to the
filthy soul of the man.

At the end of the interview
Claude Thompson was perspiring,
mopping his face with a silk hand-
kerchief and casting quick glances
at his men.

Mike Terry put a hand on Raed-
er’s shoulder. “Here is the man
who has agreed to become your
victim— if you can catch him.”

“We’ll catch him,” Thompson
said, his confidence returning.

“Don’t be too sure,” said Terry.
“Jini Raeder has fought wild bulls

—now he batdes jackals. He’s an
average man. He’s the people— vA\o
mean ultimate doom to you and
your kind.”

“We’ll get him,” Thompson
said.

“And one thing more,” Terry
said, very softly. “Jim Raeder does
not stand alone. The folks of
America are for him. Good Samari-
tans from all corners of our great
nation stand ready to assist him.
Unarmed, defenceless, Jim Raeder
can count on the aid and good-
heartedness of the people, whose
representative he is. So don’t be too
sure, Claude Thompson! The aver-
age men are for Jim Raeder— and
there are a lot of average men!”

Raeder thought about it, lying
motionless in the underbrush. Yes,
the people had helped him. But
they had helped the killers, too.

A tremor ran through him. He
had chosen, he reminded himself.
He alone was responsible. The psy-
chological test had proved that.

And yet, how responsible
were the psychologists who had
given him the test? How respon-
sible was Mike Terry for offering
a poor man so much money? So-
ciety had woven the noose and put
it around his neck, and he was
hanging himself with it, and call-
ing it free will.

Whose fault?

“Aha!” someone cried.

Raeder looked up and saw a
pordy man standing near him. The

18

man wore a loud tweed jacket. He
had binoculars around his neck,
and a cane in his hand.

“Mister,” Raedeif whispered,
“please don’t tell—”

“Hi I” shouted the portly man,
pointing at Raeder with his cane.
“Here he is!”

A madman, thought Raeder. The
damned fool must think he’s play-
ing Hare and Hounds.

“Right over here!” the man
screamed.

Cursing, Raeder sprang to his
feet and began running. He came
out of the ravine and saw a white
building in the distance. He turned
toward it. Behind him he could
still hear the man.

“That way, over there. Look, you
fools, can’t you see him yet?”

The killers were shooting again.
Raeder ran, stumbling over uneven
ground, past three children playing
in a tree house.

“Here he is!” the children
screamed. “Here he is!”

Raeder groaned and ran on. He
reached the steps of the building,
and saw that it was a church.

As he opened the door, a bullet
struck him behind the right knee-
cap.

He fell, and crawled inside the
church.

The television set in his pocket
was saying, **What a finish, jolkjs,
what a finish I Raeder* s been hit!
He*s been hit, foH{s, he*s crawling
now, he* s in pain, but he hasn*t
given up! Not Jim Raeder!**

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Raeder lay in the aisle near the
altar. He could hear a child’s eager
voice saying, “He went in there,
Mr. Thompson. Hurry, you can
still catch him!”

Wasn’t a church considered a
sanctuary, Raeder wondered.

Then the door was flung open,
and Raeder realized that the cus-
tom was no longer observed. He
gathered himself together and
crawled past the altar, out the back
door of the church.

He was in an old graveyard. He
crawled past crosses and stars, past
slabs of marble and granite, past
stone tombs and rude wooden
markers. A bullet exploded on a
tombstone near his head, shower-
ing him with fragments. He
crawled to the edge of an open
grave.

They had received him, he
thought. All of those nice average
normal people. Hadn’t they said
he was their representative? Hadn’t
they sworn to protect their own?
But no, they loathed him. Why
hadn’t he seen it? Their hero was
the cold, blank-eyed gunman,
Thompson, Capone, Billy the Kid,
Young Lochinvar, El Cid, Cuchu-
lain, the man without human hopes
or fears. They worshiped him, that
dead, implacable robot gunman,
and lusted to feel his foot in their
face.

Raeder tried to move, and slid
helplessly into the open grave.

He lay on his back, looking at
the blue sky. Presently a black sil-

THE PRIZE OF PERIL

19

houette loomed above him, blotting
out the sky. Metal t^vinklcd. The
silhouette slowly took aim.

And Raeder gave up all hope
forever.

^^WAIT, THOMPSONr roared
the amplified voice of Mike Terry.

The revolver wavered.

''It is one second past five o*cloc\l
The wee\ is up! jim raeder has
won!”

There was a pandemonium of
cheering from the studio audience.

The Thompson gang, gathered
around the grave, looked sullen.

"He's won, friends, he's won I"
Mike Terry cried. "Lool{, loot{^ on
your screen I The police have ar-
rived, they're talking the Thomp-
sons away from their victim-^the
victim they could not /(ill. And all
this is than/(s to you, Good Samari-
tans of America. Loo/( fol/(s, tender
hands are lifting Jim Raeder from
the open grave that was his final
refuge. Good Samaritan Janice
Morrow is there. Could this be the
beginning of a romance? Jim seems
to have fainted, friends, they're giv-
ing him a stimulant. He's won two
hundred thousand dollarsi Now

we'll have a few words from Jim
Raeder!"

There was a short silence.

"That's odd," said Mike Terry.
"Foll(s, I'm afraid we can't hear
from Jim just now. The doctors
are examining him. Just one mo-
ment . . ."

There was a silence. Mike Terry
wiped his forehead and smiled.

"It's the strain, folf(s, the terrible
strain. The doctor tells me . . . Well,
fol/(s, Jim Raeder is temporarily
not himself. But it's only tempo-
rary! JBC is hiring the best psychia-
trists and psychoanalysts in the
country. We're going to do every-
thing humanly possible for this
gallant boy. And entirely at our
own expense."

Mike Terry glanced at the studio
clock, "Well, it's about time to sign
off, fol/(s. Watch for the announce-
ment of our next great thrill show.
And don't worry, I'm sure that
very soon we'll have Jim Raeder
bac/( with us."

Mike Terry smiled, and winked
at the audience. "He's bound to
get well, friends. After all, we're
all pulling for him!"

Remember Threesie (F&SF, January, 1936)? Or Impact with the Devil
(November, 1936)? If so you’ll recall Ted Cogswell as a particularly
ingenious expert at twisting the tail of a standard fantasy theme by
revealing unexpected, yet wholly logical implications. The device which
he brightly rearranges this time is that of the mysterious small shop
which sells strange and unaccountable things . . . and sometimes even

Thimgs

by THEODORE R. COGSWELL

• . and the ground was frozen
solid. It too\ them two hours be-
fore they reached Hawhins* coffin.

** "See/ grunted the coroner as he
threw bac\ the lid, *he*s stiU there.
I told you you were seeing things!

'*"Vve got to be sure! said Van
Dusen thiciffy, and grabbing a
smoking lantern from beside the
grave, he thrust it down into the
open casket.

’’A shrill scream tore through the
night air and he slumped over —
dead I Instead of the heavy features
of the man he had filled, Regin-
ald Van Dusen saw HIMSELF T
There was a sudden ripple of dis-
cordant music from the loudspeaker
and then the unctuous voice of
The Ghoul broke in.

**The coroner called it suicide.
And in a way I suppose it was . . !'
His voice trailed off in a throaty
chuckle. '’The moral? Only this.

dear friends, if you should ever be
walking through a strange part of
town and come upon a little shop
you never saw before, especially a
little shop with a sign in the win-
dow that says shottle bop, we sell
THRiNGS, or something equally ri-
diculous, remember the case of the
CLUTTERED COFFIN and run, don't
wai\, to the nearest morgue. HA
HA HA HA HA!'

As the maniacal laughter trailed
away, the background music surged
up and then skittered out of hear-
ing to make way for the announcer.
He only managed to get three
words out before Albert Blotz,
owner, manager, and sole agent of
World Wide Investigations,
reached over and turned off the
little radio that stood on the win-
dow sill beside his desk.

“Boy,” he said, “that was really
something. Eh, Janie

THIMGS

21

The little crippled girl behind
the typist’s desk at the other side
of the dingy office looked up.

“What?”

“The program. Wasn’t it some-
thing?”

“Beats me,” she said. “I wasn’t
listening. Somebody has to get some
work done around here.” She
pulled a letter out of her corres-
pondence basket and waved it in
the air. “What about this Harris
letter? It’s been sitting here for a
month. After spending the guy’s
dough the least you can do is write
him an answer.”

The fat man looked blank. “Har-
ris? Who’s he?”

“The fellow in Denver who
wanted you to investigate every-
body in New York who had had
a big and unexpected windfall
within the past year,”

Blotz snorted impatiently. “That
nut! Aw, tell him anything,”

“Give me a for-instance.”

“Tell him ...” Blotz leaned
heavily back in his chair and stared
at the ceiling. “Tell him that World
Wide Investigations assigned its
best operatives to the case and that
in sixteen cases out of twenty...
No, better make it twenty-nine out
of thirty-four. That way he’ll really
feel he’s getting his money’s worth.”

“All right, in twenty-nine out of
thirty-four cases what?”

“Don’t rush me.” Blotz pulled a
bottle of cheap blend out of his
drawer and eyed the remaining
inch regretfully.

“You know the doctor said your
heart wouldn’t take much more of
that.”

The fat man shrugged and tossed
the liquor down. As his eyes wan-
dered around the office in search
of inspiration, they came to rest on
the radio.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed.

“What’s it?”

“The Ghoul! For once crime
pays somebody but the actors and
the script writers. Tell Harris that
in whatever it was out of whatever
it was cases, the individuals con-
cerned visited small shops they had
never noticed before and were sold
objects whose nature they refused
to reveal by a strange old man.”

Janie looked up from her short-
hand pad. “Is that all?”

“No, we need a clincher.” He
thought for a minute. “How’s this?
In each case when they went back
and tried to find the shop it had
disappeared.”

“You ought to try writing radio
scripts yourself.”

“Too much work,” said Blotz.
“I like the mail order detective
business better.” He looked regret-
fully at the empty botde and then
back at Janie. “While you’re at it
you might as well tell that yokel
that for five bills World Wide will
find the shop for him and buy him
one of those dingbats.”

Janie’s lips tightened. “Doesn’t
your conscience ever bother you?”

Blotz let out a nasty laugh. “If
it weren’t for the suckers I’d have

22

to work for a living. This way it*s
a breeze. Some old dame in Po-
dunk hasn’t heard from her kid
since he took off for the big city
and gets worried about him. He
doesn’t answer her letters and then
one day she sees my ad in the Po-
dunk Gazette and sends me fifty
bucks to go look for him. How
come you asked?”

“Because mine bothers me. Every
day I work here I feel dirtier.”

Blotz grinned. “Then quit.”

“I’ve been thinking of that. At
least I’d be able to sleep nights.”

“But you wouldn’t be eating so
regular. Face it, kid — nobody is
going to hire a gimpy sparrow like
you unless he’s a big-hearted guy
like me. And there ain’t many
around.”

Janie looked from him to the
pair of worn crutches that leaned
against the wall,

“Yeah,” she said as she started
punching out the letter to Harris.
“Yeah, there sure ain’t.”

Mr. Blotz’s pulse was finally back
to normal but he still couldn’t tear
his eyes away from the crisp green
slip of paper that bore the magic
figures J500.00 and the name of a
Denver bank.

“He bit,” he said in an awed
voice. “He really bit. May won-
ders, and suckers, never cease.” He
rubbed his fat hands together nerv-
ously. “I’d better get this to the
bank and cash it before something
happens.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Half an hour later he was back,
carefully stacking bottles of bonded
bourbon into his desk drawers.
When they were arranged to his
satisfaction, he leaned back and
hoisted his feet on the desk.

“Take a letter to Harris.”

Janie obediently took out her
shorthand pad.

“Usual heading. Eh . . . oh, some-
thing like this. ^Pursuant to your
instructions, my agents in all the
major cities have been instructed
to chec\ for little shops they dont
remember having seen before. They
are to be especially alert for base-
ment stores with dusty signs in the
window with wordings li\e we
SELL THRINGS OT SHOTTLE BOP. Upon
discovery they are to enter immedi-
ately. If a small aged man appears
from the rear of the shop and
presses them to buy something, they
are to do so. Once they leave they
are to mahjs careful note of the
shop's location and wal\ around
the bloc\. If when they return the
shop has disappeared, they are im-
mediately to send their purchase
to you!”

Blotz paused, took a bottle out
of his drawer, and uncapped it.
“Put something in about unexpect-
edly heavy expenses at the end.
If we play this right we may be
able to tap him again. In the mean-
time we’d better have something
ready to send him just in case.”

“What kind of a something?”
asked Janie.

“Who cares? Go over on Third

THIMGS

23

and prowl some of those junk
shops. Pick up something small —
that’ll keep the postage down —
and old.”

The little secretary pulled her-
self painfully to her feet, draped
a threadbare coat over her humped
back, and took her crutches from
beside her typing desk.

“Just don’t go over a dollar,”
added Blotz quickly.

She started toward the door and
then turned and stood blinking at
him through thick lensed glasses
that made her eyes appear twice
their normal size.

“Well?” he barked.

“I haven’t got a dollar.”

With a pained expression on his
face he fumbled in an old coin
purse. He reluctandy pulled out a
quarter, then another, and then
finally another.

“Here,” he said, “see what you
can do for seventy-five cents.”

Blotz was deep in his bottle
when Janie finally came hobbling
back and placed a small paper-
wrapped package on his desk.

“Any change?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It was fun-
ny,” she ventured. “I mean after
what you said about shuttles and
thrings — ”

“Well, open it up,” he inter-
rupted. “Let’s see what Harris is
getting for his money.”

“ — ^all this shop had in front,”
she went on hesitantly, “was just
one sign. It said: thimgs.”

“Poor bastard that owns it, I
guess. Some people have funny
names,” said Blotz. “Go on — open
it.”

With fingers that trembled slight-
ly she tore off the brown paper
wrapping. Inside was a small cor-
roded brass cylinder that on fifst
glance looked like an old plumb-
ing fixture.

“You paid seventy-live cents for
that?” said Blotz in annoyance.
“They saw you coming, kid.” He
picked it up and turned it over in
his hand. On second look he re-
alized that there was more to it
than he had first thought. Through
the heavy green patina he could
make out a series of strange char-
acters. At one end was a knob
that seemed to be made out of a
shghtly different metal than the
cylinder proper.

“I give up, what is it?” he asked.
Janie shuddered. “I wish I knew,”
she said. “I wish I knew.”

Blotz frowned and took hold of
the knob. He was about to twist
it when a sudden thought occurred
to him. It might explode or do
something equally unpleasant.

“Here, you try it,” he said to
Janie. “It seems to be stuck.”

She reached out a trembling hand
and then jerked it back. “I’m

afraid. The man in the shop said

»

“Take it!” he barked. “When
I tell you to do something, you do
it. And no back talk!”

In frightened obedience she took

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

24

the cylinder and twisted the knob.
For a moment nothing happened,
and then with an odd flickering
she vanished. Before Blotz had a
chance to react properly to the sud-
den emptiness of the office, she was
back. At least a not very reason-
able facsimile was.

She might have passed for her
sister, there was a strong family
resemblance, but the pathetic twist
in her spine was gone and so was
its accompanying hump. She was
thirty pounds heavier, and all the
pounds were in the right places.
She was — and the realization hit
Blotz like a hammer blow as he
stood gaping at her— one of the most
beautiful things he had ever seen.

The first thing she did was to
pull off her thick-lensed glasses
and throw them in the wastebasket.
The first thing Blotz did was to
grab a bottle out of his desk. He
took several long gulps, shook his
head, and shuddered.

“It’s when you’re half drunk
that things get twisty,” he mum-
bled. “I’m just going to sit here
with my eyes shut until I’m drunk
enough to get back to normal.” He
counted to twenty slowly as the
fireball in his stomach expanded
and trickled a semi-sense of well-
being through his extremities.
Then, as the nightmare slowly dis-
pelled, he let out a long sigh of
relief and opened his eyes.

She was still there I

There was a strange smile on her
face that he didn’t like.

“Where...? What...?” Blotz’s
vocal chords stopped operating and
he just sat there and quivered.
She laid the little bronze cylinder
down on the desk in front of him.

“Here,” she said softly. “You can
go there too if you want to.”

“Where?” whispered Blotz.

“I don’t know. It’s someplace
else, a tremendous place with rooms
filled with whirring machines.
There was a man there and he
asked what I wanted and I told
him. So he did a little reediting and
here I am.”

“Magic,” said Blotz hoarsely.
“Black magic, that’s what it is.
But . . .” His voice trailed off.

“But you don’t believe in magic.”
Is that what you were going to
say?” She didn’t wait for an an-
swer.* “But I do. People like me
have to. It’s the only way we can
keep going. But magic has a funny
way of working. Do you know
what I was thinking after the little
man asked me what I wanted?”

Blotz moistened his thick lips
and shook his head as if hypno-
tized.

“I was thinking that in spite of
the way things look, there’s just
one thing you can always count
on.”

“Yeah?”

“People always end up getting
what they got coming.”

Blotz let out a half hysterical
laugh. “Then where’s mine? Why
does a guy with my brains have to
scrabble out a living with a two-bit

THIMGS

25

outfit like this?** He raved on for
a minute and then got control of
himself. The liquor helped. After
he’d taken a couple more gulps
from his bottle he still couldn’t
look ^vhat had happened squarely
in the face, but with the abatement
of the first shock came a gradual
return of the old sense of mastery
that had made him hire Janie
rather than some less experienced
but more feminine — and amiable
—typist.

As an awareness of the physical
changes that had taken place be-
gan to grow, he found his eyes
sliding greedily over her. The
change hadn’t extended her dress.
The garment that had been more
than adequate covering for the
twisted and scrawny little body
she had occupied up until a few
minutes before threatened to split
at the thrusting of the rich new
curves that strained against it.

“You know, Janie,” he said slow-
ly, “seeing as it was my money that
got you what you got, that kind of
makes me the copyright owner.”
Grabbing hold of the edge of his
desk, he pulled himself to his feet
and lurched toward her. When he
put one flabby arm around her,
she didn’t pull away. Emboldened,
he let his hand slip down and be-
gin to fumble with the buttons on
her blouse.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were
you,” she said in a strange voice.

“But you ain’t me. That’s what
makes it so nice for both of us.”

His fumbling fingers had man-
aged to unfasten the first button
and his thick lips began to march
like twin slugs over the soft curve
of her shoulder.

She acted as if he were still on
the other side of the room.

“It took more courage than I
thought I had in me but I asked
him to give me just what I de-
served.”

“Him? Oh, yeah. WeU that’s
me, baby,” said Blotz thickly as
he went to work on the second
button.

“You could have been,” she said
in the same distant voice. “That
was the chance I was taking.”

The second button was obstin-
ate. Blotz gave an impatient yank
that caused the worn fabric to rip
in his hands. As if aware of them
for the first time, she shrugged her-
self free. As Blotz grunted and
grabbed for her, he felt a sudden
wrenching, stabbing pain lance
through his chest, and then with
no transition at all he found him-
self falling. He slumped against
the desk, and as his plump fingers
scrabbled against the smooth sur-
face, trying to secure a hold that
would keep him from plummeting
down into darkness, they touched
the worn bronze cylinder. As he
slid on down, face purple and eye-
balls bulging, more through in-
stinct than conscious volition he
found and twisted the serrated
knob at one end. There was an
immediate release, a translation in-

26

to someplace else. He was stand-
ing again and the pain was gone,
but except for a tiny glowing spot
in front of him, it was darker
than he had ever known before.

“Janie,” he whimpered. “Janie.”

His voice echoed metallically
from distant walls. He turned to
run but there was no place to run
to, only the darkness. He had a
sudden vision of unseen pits and
crevasses, and froze where he stood.
And then, unable to stand his own
immobility, he inched cautiously to-
ward the tiny spot of light, testing
the whatever-it-was under his feet
with each sliding step.

At last he was able to touch it,
a cold luminous circle set in a
smooth steel wall at chest height.
As he moved his arm toward it,
the hand that still held the bronze
cylinder jerked forward of its own
volition, pulling his arm with it,
and plunged into the glowing cir-
cle. There was a clicking of relays
and then glaring overhead lights
went on.

He had been wise to check his
footing. He was standing on a
catwalk that arched dizzily over
a several-acre expanse of strange
whirring machinery. There were
no guard rails, only a narrow
tongue of metal that stretched out
from some spot lost in the murky
distance until it reached the smooth
metal wall before which be stood.
Then with a whining sound, a
door opened in front of him. An
invisible force pushed him through

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

and he found himself in a great
vault-like room whose walls were
covered with countless tiny wink-
ing lights and bank upon bank
of intricate controls. As the door
clanged shut behind him, a little
ball of shimmering light bounced
across the floor toward him, ex-
panded, wavered, and then sud-
denly took the shape of a harassed-
faced little man with burning, deep-
set eyes and a long white beard.

“Well,” he said impatiently, “out
with it!”

Blotz didn’t say anything for a
minute. He couldn’t. When he
finally got partial control of his
vocal chords all that came out was
an almost incoherent series of
who's, what's and how's. The little
man interrupted him with an im-
patient gesture.

“Stop sputtering,” he said testily.
“I’m tired of sputtering. This may
be new to you but it isn’t to me.
You’re the four-hundred and-thirty-
six-thousand-three-hundred-and-fif-
ty-ninth mortal to get hold of one
of the keys, and you’re also the
four - hundred - and - thirty - six - thou-
sand - three - hundred-and-fifty-ninth
sputterer. Damn the M.W. boys,
anyway!”

“M.W.?” Blotz was sparring for
enough time to get his own think-
ing organized. What steadied him
was the thought that, fantastic as
all this was, Janie had been here
before him. And Janie had some-
how managed to snag herself a
jackpot. His first job was to find

THIMGS

27

out enough about the situation to
angle it around to his own advan-
tage.

“Mysterious Ways. It’s a special
department in the home office that
specializes in making life more
complicated for the Guardians. I’m
a Guardian,” the little man added
gloomily.

“After Reward and Punishment
switched their records section over
to completely automatic operation,
somebody in M.W. came up with
the bright idea that humans should
still have some sort of a chance
for personal attention. So they
made up a few widgets like the
one you got hold of and scattered
them around at random.” He gave
a dry cough. “Not that you’ve got
much when you do get hold of one.
All that comes with it is the right
to a little personal re-editing of
your future — ^and even that is con-
trolled by the Prime Directive.”

Blotz’s eyes narrowed slightly.
So he had a right to something. He
had something coming that they
had to give him. He thought of
Janie’s sudden metamorphosis and
he licked his thick lips.

“The girl that was here before
me,” he asked eagerly. “Is what
happened to her what you call re-
editing?”

The little man nodded,

“And I got a right to the same.^
I mean, you can make me look the
way I’d like to instead of the way
I do?”

There was another nod. “But — **

“No bufsy interrupted Blotz
rudely. “I want what I got a right
to. You get to work on that tape
of mine and fix it so I’ll have as
much on the ball on the male side
as Janie has on the female. And toss
in a nice fat bankroll while you’re
at it. Me, I like to travel first class.**
He thought for a moment and then
held up a restraining hand. “But
don’t start tinkering until I give
you the word. It ain’t every day that
a guy gets a chance to rebuild him-
self from the ground up, and I
want to be sure that I get all the
little details just right.”

“But,” continued the Guardian
as if the interruption had never oc-
curred, “re-editing in your case
wouldn’t have much point. The
heart attack you were having just
before the key brought you here
was a signal, a warning that the tape
which has been recording the sig-
nificant events of your life has just
about reached its end. A few min-
utes after you return, the auto-
matic rewind will cut in and then
your spool will be removed from
the recorder and sent over to Re-
ward and Punishment for process-
ing.”

Blotz had always considered him-
self an atheist — more in self-defense
than anything else. The thought
of a superior something someplace
taking personal note of each of his
antisocial actions for purposes of
future judgment was one that he
had never cared to contemplate. He
much preferred the feeling of im^

28

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

munity that came with the belief
that man is simply an electrochemi-
cal machine that returns to its or-
iginal components when it finally
wears out.

But now! The little man^s casual
reference to something coming
after was disturbing enough to al-
most override the shock caused by
the announcement of his immi-
nent death.

“What’s processing?” he asked
uneasily. “What are they going to
do to me?”

Instead of answering, the Guard-
ian walked over to a control panel
and punched a series of buttons.
A moment later a large screen
over his head lit up.

“The playback starts here.”

The screen flickered and then
steadied to show a hospital delivery
room and a writhing woman
strapped to a table.

“What’s all this got to do with
me?”

“R&R have to start their process-
ing someplace. In your case I im-
agine some special arrangements
have been made.”

They had been. When Blotz
started making little mewling
noises, the little man reached for-
ward and turned a knob. The
screen went dark.

“Had enough?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said the other thickly,
“but I got to know.” He shuddered.
“Go ahead and hit the high spots.
Nothing could be worse than what
I just saw.”

The Guardian did. There were
things that could be worse. Much
worse.

“Why?” whispered Blotz when
it was finally over. “Why?”

“Because the ethical universe is
just as orderly as the physical one.
For each action there is an equal
and contrary — though delayed — re-
action.”

Blotz fought frantically against
the hysteria that threatened to en-
gulf him. Always in the past there
had been something that could be
twisted to his advantage. The pres-
ent had to be the same. There had
to be an angle here. There had to
be! Desperately he ran over the
events of the past quarter hour,
trying to find something that
didn’t fit the pattern as the little
man had presented it.

The re-editing! There had to be
something in the re-editing I

“Look,” he stammered. “You
can change things. You did for
Janie. Why can’t you go back over
my tape and take out all the really
bad things?”

“Because the past can’t be
changed,” said the little man im-
patiendy. “The re-editing that you
have a right to applies only to the
future. And as I’ve already pointed
out, yours is so limited that any
adjustment I might make would
have very little meaning.”

Blotz took a deep breath and
held it. He couldn’t afford to panic.
Not now. But where was the
angle? Given that the past couldn’t

THIMGS

29

be changed. Given that once he
returned to Earth he had only a
half a minute of life left. What
then? How could a tape be kept
from ending?

Say he’d bugged a bedroom to
collect evidence for a divorce' case
and say he didn’t want to miss re-
cording a single squeak. Maybe if
he ...

Of coursel

“Fve got a little job for you,” he
said in a voice that quivered slightly
in spite of his best efforts to con-
trol it. “I want you to do some
splicing.”

The little man looked at him in
obvious bewilderment.

“Splicing?”

Blotz was still shaky but he was
beginning to enjoy himself. “That’s
what I said. It just occurred to me
that if you spliced a second tape on
to the end of the one that’s just
about finished, I could keep on
living.” He gestured toward the
blank screen. “And after your little
preview, keeping on living is what
I want most to do. The splicing,
it can be done, can’t it?”

It was the Guardian’s turn to
sputter.

“Can? Of course it can. But I’m
not about to,” he added angrily.
“To begin with, your old body’s
worn out and I’d have to hunt you
up a new one.”

“So what? The thing I want to
hang on to is the me, the part that
does the feeling and thinking, the

part that \nows!* A snarl came
into his voice. “And don’t tell me
you won’t. You’ve got to!” He
waved the bronze cylinder under
the little man’s nose. “I came up
with the brass ring, Buster, and I
got a free ride coming.”

He stopped suddenly and a look
of awe came over his face. ''A free
ride? And why only one when
I can keep on swapping horses?”
He laughed exultantly. “Why, if
you keep on splicing? Listen, here’s
the word. Every time the tape that’s
running through the recorder is
about to reach its end, I want a
new one patched on. And make
sure that each body I get is well-
heeled, healthy and handsome. Like
I said before, I like to travel first
class.”

The little man seemed on the
verge of tears. “It’s not a good
idea,” he said. “It’s not a good idea
at all. I can barely keep up with

my work as it is, and if I have to

>*

“But you do have to,” said Blotz
viciously. “Whether you like it or
not. I’ve just beat the system. Me,
little A1 Blotz, the guy that used
to have to work penny-ante
swindles just to keep eating. But
no more. What was chalked up
against me before is peanuts com-
pared to what’s coming. And you
know why? Because Reward and
Punishment can’t process me until
my tape comes to an end. And it
ain’t ever. Never!”

“But—”

30

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Get goingl”

The Guardian threw up his
hands in defeat. “It’s going to make
a lot of extra work for me,” he
said mournfully, “but if you in—”

“Sure I insist,” said Blot2:, hold-
ing resolutely onto the cylinder.
“You can tell Reward and Punish-
ment to go process itself. I got it
made.”

The little machine that kept
track of Mr. Blotz’s actions hesi-
tated momentarily when it came
to the splice, and then gave a loud
click and began to record on the
new section of tape.

click!

He woke to something heavy
pressing on his chest and an angry
buzzing. Blotz — no longer Blotz
as far as externals went— opened
sleepy eyes and blinked up at the
ugly wedge-shaped head that was
reared back ready to strike.

“Why didn’t you tell me you
were expe^ing company, Cari?”
There was a note of savage enjoy-
ment in the soft voice from the other
side of the campfire.

Blotz wanted to beg, to plead
with the other to save him, but
he didn’t dare risk the slightest
lip movement. The snake was
angry. One little motion and it
would strike.

“I was going to kill you, Carl,”
the quiet voice went on. “I was
going to damn my immortal soul
to save the world from you. But
now I don’t have to. Fm just a

spectator. Sometime before too
long you’re going to have to move.
When you do it will be horrible,
but it won’t last more than a few
hours. That’s more than you
granted the others. Remember my
sister, Carl ? And how long it took ? ”
The involuntary movement that
was the prelude to agony was ac-
companied by a momentary feeling
of relief. At least before too long it
would be over. But with the final
convulsion there came a
click!

He was strangling. With a con-
vulsive kick he brought himself to
the surface and spat out a mouthful
of blood-tinged salt water. To his
left small bits of debris bobbed up
and down in the oil slick that
marked the spot where his cabin
cruiser had gone down. He pad-
died in an aimless circle, unable to
strike out because of the splintered
rib that lanced into one lung. Al-
most an hour passed before the
first black dorsal fin came circling
curiously in.

The Guardian yawned as he
looked around for another bit of
tape to splice on to the one that
was almost finished. Young,
healthy, handsome — there were
enough odd ends around so that
Blotz would never have to worry
about dying, never in a million
years.

Not dying, that was something
else.
click!

All Vv€ been able to learn about John Shepley is that he was born hi
1925 in Minnesota, was once a silk-screen artist in New York, and is
now a writer in Rome; that his work has appeared in various ^'little
magazines^* and in Martha Foley's the best American short stories:
1956 ; and that this is his first published fantasy. Delightful in both its
thinking and its writing, this hitherto unchronicled episode in the career
of the great Toto should make you, like me, hungry for more Shepley
soon.

Gorilla Suit

by JOHN SHEPLEY

MAN WITH GORILLA SUIT
or gorilla to help publicize new-
est Bing Crosby— Bob Hope— Dor-
othy Lamour Technicolor comedy
“Road to Bali.’’ 1 day’s employ-
ment. Apply Bali-Bally Dept,
Paramount Pictures, 11th floor,
1501 Broadway, Monday AM.

—Classified Advertisement
in the New York Times
Sunday, January 25, 1953.

Toto judged it a very dull issue of
the Sunday Times. He had read
the theater section, admitting him-
self reluctantly in agreement with
the critics: Broadway was having
another disappointing season. He
had not been impressed by any of
the book reviews; the news was the
usual alternating succession of hor-
rors and trivia; the articles in the

magazine section had left him cold.
Finally, glumly, he had begun the
crossword puzzle, much to the
amusement oi the crowd on the
other side of the bars. They always
distracted and irritated him particu-
larly, these familial Sunday crowds,
the mournful dutiful fathers, the
stout women in hats, the noisy chil-
dren with candy-smeared faces and
sticky pointing fingers, but never-
theless he had become fairly ab-
sorbed . . . until he came to 143
Across: “t/. 5. experimental $4 gold
pieces, 1879-80'' A seven-letter
word, the sixth “A.” But who but
a financial historian could be ex-
pected to know what it was? Spe-
cialization was creeping even into
the simplest Sunday pastimes — it
was unfair. Standing to the front
of the crowd and holding the string

31

32

or a pink balloon was a kind-look-
ing lady with dim blue eyes. Per-
haps she was a financial historian
— To to earnestly approached her.
She shrieked, letting go o£ the bal-
loon, and as it floated upwards, the
children twittered in chorus and
some cried. Toto gave up, threw
down pencil and puzzle, and took
refuge on the topmost perch of the
cage, where he clung sulkily until
the crowd, bored by his inactivity,
moved away. Then he dropped
back to the floor, and, consumed
by a sense of futility, began leaf-
ing through the Classified Adver-
tisements.

And there he came across it. In-
credulous, he blinked his eyes,
scratched his head and sides, read
it through a second, then a third,
time . . . but no, it was no mistake:
there in cold print was a job
opening for a man with a gorilla
siiit or a gorilla to help publicize
Dorothy Lamour’s latest picture,
Toto pulled himself up, reflecting
that he didn’t need a job, that in
a sense he had one already, but the
implications contained in the little
boxed announcement would not
be silenced, the fun it would be,
the glory (he might even be photo-
graphed with Dorothy Lamourl),
though only for one day. He found
himself skipping and swinging all
over the cage.

But when, with a certain critical
caution, he returned to peruse the
ad for a fourth time, subtle qualms
began to arise in his mind. Perhaps

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

what they wanted was a man with
a gorilla suit or a man with a gor-
illa — in which case, there was no
point in his applying. It was really
rather obscure, just what they
thought they wanted, and Toto,
trying to figure it out, scratched
himself for a long time. Yet, if the
idea was to have a gorilla, simu-
lated or otherwise, why shouldn’t
one apply? And indeed, there was
a simple solution: if they insisted
that the gorilla be humanly es-
corted, why not show the ad to his
keeper, Mr. McCready, while point-
ing with especial emphasis to *'llth
floor, 1501 Broadway, Monday
AM*'?

But no, that wouldn’t do, he
immediately recognized the im-
practicality of it. It wasn’t that Mr.
McCready would refuse — he
wouldn’t — ^but he wouldn’t agree
cither. He would be doubtful; he
would give a pompous little laugh,
a nervous cough; he would look
puzzled and hurt; until Toto,
feeling guilty, would withdraw his
request altogether. Or, on the off-
chance that Mr. McCready did
agree, it would be only with the
understanding that he must first
ask the directors, and he would so
procrastinate in doing so that (even
assuming that the directors ulti-
mately gave their approval) it
would then be too late to apply for
the job. Someone else would al-
ready have enjoyed the brief, glori-
ous limelight with Dorothy La-
mour. No, the only thing to do.

GORILLA SUIT

33

Toto decided, was to present Mr.
McCready and the zoo authorities
with a fait accompli.

He could hardly wait for clos-
ing time, when the visitors would
vanish and the doors be locked, so
that he might have a little quiet in
which to think out a plan. Surely,
he reasoned, as he watched the at-
tendants sweeping up the trash left
by the departed crowd, surely he
would be hired in preference to any
man dressed up like a gorilla. It
shouldn’t be difficult to beat out
that kind of competition. But sup-
pose other gorillas applied, ones
with previous experience in the
theater or public relations? This
prospect so frightened him that he
decided to abandon the whole idea.
He curled himself up in a fetid
darkness, sadly caressing his toes
and listening to familiar noises,
metal somewhere scraping against
cement, mechanical rumblings in
an underground distance, the
nightly asthmatic wheezing of his
neighbor, an old prowling man-
drill. Toto closed his eyes, covered
his ears, went on arguing to him-
self . . . what was there to lose ?
Nothing, really. It wasn’t even as
though he were risking anything,
for the worst that could happen
was that he simply wouldn’t get the
job. All the same, it wouldn’t be
easy to get out of the cage.

Nothing ventured, nothing
gained. It was tiresome having to
bolster oneself with truisms — still,
cheerfully enough, he set about

testing the bars, one by one. He
went all over the cage, without
finding a single loose bar. He
groaned, realizing how much time
he had already wasted, for not
only must he be out of the cage
and away from the zoo before Mr.
McCready arrived in the morning,
but he must be at 1501 Broadway
in time to be among the first on
line. Now, painfully, he tried to
squeeze himself between the bars,
aware that the mandrill had
stopped his prowling, was crouch-
ing there on his haunches, his eyes
a phosphorescent green, watching
it all with the bemused curiosity
of the senile. Toto went on pushing
and lunging, but all he succeeded
in doing was to scrape some patches
of fur from his forearms and sides.
And it was so important to look his
best!

It was useless, the space between
the bars was too small. In a final,
despairing, almost whimsical ges-
ture, he tried the door — it opened
easily. But that showed that they
trusted him! Astonished, he could
only stand there holding the catch
of the door, wondering if it would
not be ungrateful to take advantage
of such trust. Ah, but if he got the
job, how proud Mr. McCready
would be! Or would he? Toto
wavered . . . the mandrill resumed
wheezing ... familiar sounds. And
then he heard an unfamiliar sound,
a rustling of jungle leaves, and the
bright image of Dorothy Lamour
stepped out into the sunlight. Toto

34

leapt confidently out of the cage.

But he had forgotten that the
door of the building itself would be
locked. He kicked it, pulled it,
beat on it with his fists, which only
awoke the spider monkeys, spite-
ful little creatures who tumbled
and gibbered and pointed their
fingers at him. Then the most fear-
ful racket broke out — the chimpan-
zees woke up and began screaming,
a chorus of baboons howled, even
the mandrill joined in. ""Whafs
going on in thereV ' — and the door
opened, pressing Toto behind it, as
the night guard came in, cursing
softly and flashing his light about
the cages. Everybody, blinking,
became silent, and Toto had just
enough time to slip around the
door and hide himself behind a
low cement wall before the guard
re-emerged and turned the lock.
Toto held his breath, but the guard
merely went away whistling, swing-
ing his extinguished light.

He rested, until the pounding of
his heart subsided and the guard
was out of sight. Then, happily,
cutting a little caper, he set out
across the park.

It was quarter to nine when he
took the elevator to the eleventh
floor at 1501 Broadway. Again he
was feeling worried and uncom-
fortable. For one thing, he was
hungry, and he was afraid he had
caught cold during two hours of
furtive slumber in some bushes
near the skating rink. And all the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

way from the park, down Broad-
way to 44th Street, he had re-
proached himself for forgetting to
bring along the Classified Adver-
tisements Section of the Times. It
would have been most helpful in
explaining his presence on the
streets had a policeman or anyone
else stopped him. But fortunately
no one had stopped him. The
people in the street had all passed
him by with Monday-morning ex-
pressions on their faces.

In the crowded elevator, he tried
to spruce himself up, brushing
from his shoulders and legs the
bits of dried grass that clung there
from his sleeping in the park. But
a murmur of protest arose — ^“Hey,
quit y’r shovin’, Mac,” said a man
on his right, who, Toto suddenly
saw, had a rolled-up gorilla suit
under his arm. He resigned himself
to standing quietly, fervently hop-
ing that he had got rid of most of
the grass.

The elevator emptied itself at the
eleventh floor, they all streamed out
together, and to Toto’s amazement,
each of his fellow passengers was
carrying a gorilla suit — some in a
neat bundle with the jaws gaping
out from under the owner’s arm,
some draped across human
shoulders with a gorilla head bob-
bing along ludicrously a few inches
from the floor, some apparent only
by the patches of fur sticking out
from the apertures of shabby card-
board suitcases or corrugated boxes.
He had not expected so much com-

GORILLA SUIT

35

petition, but there was at least one
cause for relief — neither getting out
of the elevator nor in the crowd
already waiting at the door of the
Bali-Bally Department was there a
single other real gorilla. He joined
the increasing throng milling about
the unopened office.

Although he knew it was not
quite fair to do so, he could not
help feeling a litde contemptuous.
Not only were they not gorillas,
they were a sorry lot of men — wan,
and thin, and old. He overheard a
bit of conversation, one man say-
ing to another, “Hey, I seen you
before! Wasn’t you a Santa Claus
in Herald Square last Christmas?”

“Yeah. But I don’t remember
seein’ you.”

“I was there awright, Mac, you
shoulda looked. I tried to get into
Macy’s, Gimbel’s, anyplace warm,
but the best I could get was one of
them street jobs. It’s a tough
racket.”

“Sure is,” the other agreed. “I
got an Easter Bunny job lined up
maybe, but I don’t know what I’ll
do till then if I don’t get this thing.”
And he patted his gorilla suit,
while the first man eyed him jeal-
ously. “Even if it is just one day.”

And now Toto began to feel
sorry for them, wondering if it was
not grasping and presumptuous of
him to be there at all. He, for
whom food and shelter had been
generously provided, who had even
a recognized social function, had
descended to trying to take work

away from individuals who really
needed it. Perhaps he should turn
back . . . but at that point the ele-
vator opened again, another mob
of men with gorilla suits poured
out, and they were followed by a.
young woman, who, after fumbling
in her purse, produced a key and
unlocked the door of the Bali-Bally
Department.

“Come in, all of you,” she said.
“Take seats along the wall. Mr.
Phineas will be here any minute to
conduct the interviews.”

Toto thought her very attractive,
in her hard blond way, though by
no means so beautiful as Dorothy
Lamour. Even so, it occurred to
him, it might be fun to whisk her
away for a weekend atop the Em-
pire State Building while crowds
gathered and the police hovered in
helicopters; but he quickly sup-
pressed this whimsical idea, and
filed respectfully into the office
along with the other applicants.

There were not enough chairs
for all of them. Toto joined a nerv-
ous little group standing by the
wall, while the blond secretary
busied herself at her desk. “I might
as well start the ball rolling,” she
announced, “while we’re waiting
for Mr. Phineas. I certainly didn’t
expect so many. Let me make it
clear at the beginning that we want
somebody experienced and respon-
sible, preferably with references.
There’s every chance that Miss La-
mour will ask to be photographed
with the successful applicanL”

36

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Toto’s heart trembled, beat
faster. He had no experience to
offer, and no references, but he took
pride in thinking he was respon-
sible. And how could they possibly
not prefer him over these wretched
fakes? And to be photographed
with . . . with . . . “I’ll take your
names,” he heard the secretary say-
ing — “You first.” The man next to
him started forward. “No, no, the
other one. The one that’s already
got his suit on.” Slowly, fearfully,
Toto approached the desk.

“Name?” she said, pencil poised.

• • •

“Speak up. Don’t, mumble so.
What is it?”

• • •

She threw down the pencil. “Oh,
never mind! I can’t take every-
body’s name anyway — there arc too
many. Why the hell didn’t that
stupid Phineas do all this through
an employment agency?”

Toto,, ashamed of his failure to
communicate with her, desperately
racked his brain. He might, of
course, establish for her his authen-
ticity by performing some of the
indelicate little antics that so un-
failingly delighted visitors to the
zoo . . . But no, that would prob-
ably do more harm than good,
would, in fact, quite ruin his
chances of being thought respon-
sible. It was better to retire and
wait for Mr. Phineas.

“I can’t say your costume is very
convincing,” she called after him
as he backed away from the desk.

“Still, it’s up to Phineas to decide
-Oh, Mr. Phineas^

A little bowlegged man had
bounded in, breathlessly throwing
off his hat and overcoat. “I’m ter-
ribly sorry, Eloise honey,” he cried,
“to have dumped all tiiis on you.
Honestly, I didn’t realize. Next
time, sweetie. I’ll do it all through
an employment agency and let
them screen people first.”

“Oh, I don’t mind, Mr. Phineas,”
she said, with a brave smile.

“That’s the spirit, girl!” He
patted her on the shoulder. “All
right, all you Tarzans, let’s have
a look at you! Into the monkey
suits and make it snappy!” And
glancing at Toto, he added aside to
Eloise, “A-ha, a real eager beaver!”

A real eager gorilla. But he stood
patiently, waiting while all the men
clambered into their suits. “Line
up!” commanded Mr. Phineas, and
they all took their places, as he
walked along examining them with
a shrewd, suspicious eye.

“Just look at this one!” he
shrieked, pointing to an especially
seedy individual standing next to
Toto. “The buttons even show. He
might as well have turned up in
his long winter underwear! I’ll bet
there’s not a zipper in the whole
crowd.” Toto was on the point of
stepping forward to demonstrate
that he had neither buttons nor
zippers— most important of all,
didn’t need them — but before he
could think of a decorous approach,
Mr. Phineas had moved on.

CX)RILLA SUIT

37

''Honest, Eloise,” he was saying,
sauntering up and down with his
hands on his hips, “did you ever
in your life see such a bunch of
mangy, moth-eaten gorillas? That
one there”— he flipped a hand in
Toto’s direction — “isn’t too bad,
I suppose. What do you think,
honey?”

“Gee, Mr. Phineas, I just don’t
know,” she said, gazing at them all
in bewildered disappointment.
“Would you like me to call up one
of the employment agencies after
all?”

“No, we haven’t got time. It’ll
have to be one of these.” And he
gave Toto a long critical look.

Toto’s heart was bursting with
hope and joy, but he made every
effort to contain himself. And then
it happened, in all its horror —
the door opened, and in came
another real gorilla, an arrogant
creature carrying a shining alumi-
num suitcase.

“I’m sorry, sir, I think we have
enough applicants already — ” Elo-
ise began, but the newcomer, grin-
ning, merely slavered at her lech-
erously. He set down his suitcase,
opened it, and — to Toto’s stunned
mortification — took out a lustrous
gorilla suit, into which he deftly
proceeded to zipper himself. This
process completed, he made a little
bow to Mr. Phineas and Eloise,
offering his arm for their inspec-
tion.

“Why, it’s not gorilla fur at all,”
said Mr. Phineas, feeling the suit.

“It’s genuine, fine-spun, combed,
nylon-acetate!”

“It’s beautiful,” breathed the sec*
retary. “It’s perfectly divine.”

“And so chic," marveled Mr.
Phineas. “Well, that settles it. He’s
definitely hired. All the rest of you
can go now. Leave by the side
door, please.”

The men, grumbling and dis-
consolate, took off their gorilla suits
and trooped out. Toto heard Eloise
saying to the successful applicant,
“It’s just for one day, but you’ll
still have to fill out a withholding
statement. What’s your social se-
curity—” and then he was in the
hallway, shuffling sadly towards the
elevator. “Too bad, eh, Mac?” said
the man next to him. “That’s what
always happens.” But Toto had
no idea whom he might be address-
ing.

He reached the street and began
walking dejectedly up Broadway.
Hurrying pedestrians brushed
against him, but he hardly noticed
them. He tried to take comfort in
the knowledge that he hadn’t really
needed a job, and he only hoped
that Mr. McCready wouldn’t be
too angry when he presented him-
self back at the zoo. At a corner
newsstand he suddenly stopped,
his attention caught by a screaming
headline in the Daily News:

DRAGNET
OUT FOR
ESCAPED
GORILLA

38

And the Journal- American an-
nounced in bold red letters:

TERROR GRIPS CITY AS
KILLER APE PROWLS!

while underneath was a photo-
graph, his, Toto’s, with the caption,
“Have You Seen This Gorilla?”
and the telephone number to call
in case you had. People milled
about the newsstand trying to get
a look at the picture, a few women

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

clutched their bosoms, and one of
them stepped on Toto’s foot. “Oh,
excuse me,” she said, looking him
right in the face.

Still, someone soon would rec-
ognize him— it was only a matter
of time. He wondered whether to
strike out boldly along Broadway
or try to hide in some side-street,
and as he stood, hesiuting on the
corner, a squad car stopped, and
a policeman got out and tapped
him on the shoulder.

BINDERS...

The Magazine of FANTASY
and SCIENCE FICTION has

in stock a supply of strong,
handsome binders for your
copies of F&SF. Each binder
holds one complete volume —
that is, six issues of the maga-
zine. It is easy to use, handy,
convenient and economical.
The price is $1.50 postpaid.
Send your order and remit-
tance to: Special Binder Dept.,
The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction, 527 Madison
Ave., New York 22, N. Y.

Avram Davidson's eight previous stories in F&SP have all been short
( none much over 5500 words y or around 8 of these pages), if unusually
memorable; and all of them have been set in the present or the past.
1 think you'll be as happily surprised as 1 was by the unexpected form
of this latest Davidson: a full long-short-story, verging in content on
the novelet, and set in a highly detailed future, logically arrived at by
the best methods of science fiction. S.f. has not hitherto considered the
future history of body snatching; but there may come a need, as Mr.
Davidson perceptively points out, for the resurrection of that once-
essential art — this time with coirect legal formalism and a proper code
of ethics . . . but will the half-educated mass public comprehend the
distinction?

Up the Close and Doun the Stair

by AVRAM DAVIDSON

Up the close and doun the stair.
But and ben un Burke and Hare.
Burke's the butcher. Hare's the
thief,

Knox the boy that buys the beef.
— Edinburgh folk rime, 1828

The incident at Haven of Rest
Memorial Park hit the papers with
a bang.

That is, it hit the Tribune- Ameri-
can first, and the other papers
picked it up from there. The Trib
was one of the Greiss Chain and it
was right up their alley — old Greg-
ory Perkins Greiss was still alive
when the M. R. Act was passed,

and the chain continued to stir up
trouble at every opportunity, prod-
ded from time to time by lavender-
scented, lavender-colored notes
from Lavinia Greiss, the Old Man’s
widow. G. P. used to jay— and,
G. P. would have wished—ox, **Thts.
horror-Bill," as G. P. used to call it
—so the notes began. But when the
Trib got wind of this story it didn’t
require any prompting from the
Dowager Publisher to break it.

Dr. Loren Winslow told the re-
porters, quite truthfully, that he
hadn’t had anything to do with
Mrs. Hotaling’s having signed the
contract with the lAM. ‘7 signed
the death certificate: that was all,”

39

40

he told them. Pressed to make any
comments he cared to on the situ-
ation in particular or in general,
he said that the only comment he
cared to make was “No comment.’*

Big Blue Hotaling was still alive
—but just barely— when the neigh-
bors broke down the door. He died
while Dr. Winslow was just be-
ginning to examine him. But that
preliminary examination was
enough. He turned to the widow
and the neighbor woman who was
comforting her, and said— rather
without any attempt at sympathy,
for he knew the Hotalings well—
“Well ril be darned. Pneumonia.
Nobody dies of pneumonia any-
more.... Leave it to Blue to be
different.”

There was, however, nothing
different about the period just be-
fore his unusual death. He came
home with a case of booze, kicked
Dolly out of the apartment, locked
the door and started drinking. He
did this about every six weeks.
This time, however, he got crocked
so fast and so thoroughly that he
didn’t even notice when the oil-
burner quit working. Dolly, com-
ing back cautiously on the fourth
day of the binge, heard no noise
in the apartment— no usual noise,
that is, no singing or cursing. Only
a curious sort of something or other.
She didn’t realize at the moment
it was the noise Blue made while
he was drowning in his own lung-
fluid, but it worried her enough to
call the neighbors, and so—

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“I don’t remember the last time
I’ve heard of anyone dying of
pneumonia,” the physician said.

Dolly looked dry-eyed at the
body of her husband (he didn’t
make a very pretty corpse, but then,
he wasn’t very pretty when alive,
either— now, at least, he was quiet)
and tried to cry.

The neighbor (her name was
Linny Hart) felt no such obliga-
tion. “Well, he went painlessly,
dear,” she pointed out. Then her
eyes narrowed. “Say— Doc. If it’s so
unusual, uh, wouldn’t the lAM be
interested? Huh, Doc?”

Winslow threw her a quick
glance. “I suppose so,” he said. “But
that’s not for me to say.”

Linny nodded. “I don’t suppose
he left you no insurance or any-
thing like that, Dolly ? No, I
thought not,” as Dolly shook her
head, silently. “Catch him doing
someone else a favor! Well, he done
one now, want to or not. Sure — I
betchu the lAM will be very in-
terested.”

Dolly protested feebly, “Oh,
Linny, I could-int! What Would
People SayV

“People don’t have ta know,”
Linny pointed out. “Anyway, it’s
for their own good. Leave me see
if the number is in this phone book
here .... Unless the Dear Departed
let his bill run on too long.”

Blue’s working companions were
by no means as numerous as his
drinking companions, but between

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

41

the two groups, plus neighbors,
there were quite a lot of people at
the funeral, most of whom had
turned in for a few prophylactic
drinks before braving the raw cold
en route to the crematorium. The
minister made his departure as
soon as he had shaken hands and
murmered to the widow. The cof-
fin slid out of sight. They waited
for the flames. There were no
flames. One or two of the men
started to mutter. They looked at
the mortician while the organ
played. Then they looked towards
the back of the room and growled.
Dolly, by this time finally enabled
to forget what Life With Big Blue
had really been like, was snuffling
into a handkerchief just large
enough to cover the end of her
nose. And the organ music went
a note lower and the mortician
opened the doors and indicated,
with a glance at the people in the
front row and a slight lift of his
eyebrows, that the show was over
and would they please file out and
go away.

Fat Sol Feinstein stalked over
and faced up to him.

“What’s going on?” he asked,
trying to reduce his hoarse rumble
to a whisper.

“Why, ah, the services are over,
sir,” the mortician said, unhappily.

“Listen I” Sol twisted around
looked apologetically towards
Dolly, swiveled back to the em-
balmer’s flunkey. “Whaddaya mean:
Over? Hah? How come no cre-

mation, hah? Whaddaya tryin a
pull?” He was joined by Fingers
Feeney, Ugly Urquhart, and a few
others.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, please.
I thought you knew, for Heaven’s
sake,” the undertaker wound up.
“This is a Reversion case. The actual
cremation will take place — ah —
‘afterwards’. . . No scene, please,
gentlemen?”

The men turned red. “See?
Whad I tell ya?” Sol demanded.
“Whad I tell ya?” He took the
attendant mortician’s lapels in his
large hands. “Listen: We knew the
Deceased. See? And we \now he
never signed no— Reversion. He
told us plenty often what he
thought of it. So don’t try and
pull no—” He turned again, as the
unhappy undertaker’s eyes went
past him, and he glared at the man
who had come up from the back
of the room. The man was as large
and tough-looking as any of them,
but it was a smooth toughness. His
clothes were conservative— solid
reds and purples, instead of the gay
figured designs most of the men
had on— closer to the fashions of
the late ’70s than to the present.

He spoke in a low, patient voice,
as if this was an everyday matter
with him— as, indeed, it probably
was. “The Right of Reversion Con-
tract was signed by the widow,”
the man said.

Feeney swore. “I tole ya the min-
ute I walked in, dinn I?” he yelled.
“I can smell ’em, I can smell ’em

42

a mile away! He’s one a them lousy
Burke and Hares!”

The lAM man took a piece of
paper from his pocket, ignoring
the growls and oaths. “This is a
photostat of the contract, signed by
Mrs. Dora Hotaling...” Dolly
shrank down in the chair as she
heard her name. She glanced at
Linny Hart, who sat next to her.
Linny said, in a low, swift whisper,
“Don’t panic. Leave it to me.”
Linny jumped up, busded over.
“Leave me see that/’ she demanded.
The lAM man held it out to her.
Linny put on a fine performance.
Her mouth dropped lower and
lower, her eyebrows crept higher
and higher, as she scanned the
photostat. Then she put her palms
to the sides of her face and
screamed.

“Oh, please,” begged the atten-
dant. “Please, my dear madam—”
Urquhart dragged him back.

“So thafs what it was!” Linny
shrieked, “Ooo, you bunch of rot-
ten liars! Oh, you terrible— She
thought it was for the insurance!
I was there! The man came up
and said it was for Blue’s insur-
ance. She never would of— she’d
rather cut off her right hand than
—Oh, what an awful thing! Oh,
poor Dolly!”

As Dolly, really scared now, be-
gan to cry, Ugly Urquhart grabbed
the mortician. “Where’s the body?”
he demanded. The others took up
the cry, elbowing closer.

It was the lAM man who an-

FANTASY AND SCDSNCE FICTION

swered. “It’s been removed,” he
said, “according to the terms of the
contract. Following^ research—”

Fat Sol cried, “You gahdamn
ghoidV swung at him, missed.

“—the remains will be cremated
and properly interred. I have to
remind you”— he raised his voice
over the shouts— “that interference
with the fulfillment of this contract
constitutes a Federal offense under
the Medical Research Act of—” Sol
swung again. This time he didn’t
miss. Dolly began to scream. The
attendant, unnoticed, scutded away.
Linny pressed her lips together,
looked on with satisfaction.

The Tribune- American put it on
page one, and within an hour it
was unfolding from the press-slot
of every 3-D set in the greater
metropolitan area (a triangle reach-
ing from Adantic City to Pough-
keepsie to Hartford),

THE SHAME OF AMERICA
Bluford Hotaling (or “Big Blue”
as his many friends affecdonately
called him) was not a rich man.
He wasn’t a very healthy man,
either. If he had lived in a house
heated by a fission-pile (as does
Dr. Theodore Treyer) he would
never had died of pneumonia
brought on by cold when the
old-fashioned oil-burner in his
own house broke down. And be-
cause he was neither healthy nor
wealthy, the shameless agents
of the Institute for American
Medicine, headed by Dr. Theo-

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

43

dore Treyer, had little difficulty
in conning his grief-stricken
widow into signing the infa-
mous Reversion Contract. “It’s
only a form,” these carrion-
crows assured her. “Just to see
you get your insurance money.”
Oh, she received money, all
right-

Ted Treyer threw down the
paper with a sigh. He looked up
at his companion and, seeing the
expression on her face, smiled.

But Beety Lowndas didn’t smile
back. “Ted,” she asked, her tone
troubled as her face. “Ted, is there
any chance that the lAM agent who
went to see this Mrs. Hotaling...
I mean, there are so many agents
that— the law of averages—”

Ted’s smile faded. Beety was
wearing the two-tone hair-do cur-
rently modish, blond one side,
raven-black the other. Full figures
were in fashion now once more,
after the Maypole Madness (as
sociologists were already beginning
to call it) had gone out— completely
out. Women who were naturally
thin wore moldafoam padding.
Beety (as Ted was in exceptional
position to testify) neither wore
nor needed any padding.

“Beety, sweety . . . Sometimes I
wonder if you don’t disbelieve
everything I’ve ever told you. In
which case it’s a waste of time to
do it again. But I’ll try. First: No
one can be an lAM agent unless
he or she has a graduate degree in
law, social work, or science. We

don’t hire unfrocked house-coppers.
Secondly: no agent ever calls un-
less he’s been asked. Thirdly— you
haven’t mentioned this, but I will,
since it’s part of the American
mythology: there is no quota. Not
for the agent, not for the district
supervisor, not for anybody. The
only thing even faintly resembling
a quota is the allotment. And it’s
been a long, long time since any
college has failed to receive its
allotmenL Fourth: you ask it.”

By now he had recovered his
usual high level of spirit. He was
dark and his gold-flecked suit
showed off his athletic build to ad-
vantage. His doctorate was in sci-
ence, but not in medicine— in fact,
he was one of the first to receive a
D5c. from his university which
was not a merely honorary one,
and the university was taking good
care that the new D.Sc. didn’t go
the way of the PhX).; but there
was hardly an MX), in the coun-
try who didn’t defer to him. The
Director of the lAM was, in theory,
outranked by the President of the
AMA, but the latter kept changing.
And Treyer was only the second
man to hold his office. He’d had
it for five years now. He liked it.

Beety suddenly smiled. It was a
warm, sweet smile. She was a
warm, sweet person. They had
been lovers for over a year now,
and though Treyer was modern
enough to acknowledge her and to
sec to it that she was invited wher-
ever his wife (if he’d had one)

44

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

would have been, he wasn’t mod-
ern enough to accede to her request
for a “free-born” child— as the cur-
rent, sociologically-approved phrase
was. He had, of course, shared her
pleasure when Justice Blakeney’s
famous decision was issued recently.

*'The concept of illegitimacy of
children belongs,** the Justice had
said, “/o the days of slavery and
the frilling of witches, not to a so-
ciety supposedly modern and en-
lightened, If the free-born child
can inherit from the mother, there
is no reason why that same child
cannot inherit from the father**

Thinking aloud, Treyer said,
“Good man, Blakeney.”

Beety leaned over and kissed his
forehead— the gesture, by its delib-
erate avoidance of the convention-
ally-erotic kiss, indicated nowadays
in all sophisticated circles that love
was being enjoyed to its fullest ex-
tent whenever desired: so why
bother with a pale proxy?

“Then how about it, Ted?” she
asked. Her hair and skin were like
honey.

He grinned. “Unnatural female!
Would you have a child by a
ghoul?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, contritely,
“I know you’re right. About there
being nothing improper in lAM
methods, I mean. I know that . . .”
her voice ebbed.

Treyer asked, “What is it, then?
Michael and Kevin been sneering?”
She nodded. “Oh, why the Hell
d’you let those poor sapless twigs

bother you? I know you can’t help
meeting them— and others like
them— in the interior decorating
business. But surely you can see
that the wretched fellows will sneer
at anyone who is capable of a love
which they’re denied?”

Her bright dark eyes ceased wan-
dering around the office— it had
been decorated before she’d even
772 et Ted Treyer, let alone become
his mistress, but it was such a
perfectly-appointed room she’d
never wanted to change it— and
rested on him. “It isn’t just Michael
and Kevin,” she said, slowly. “It’s
everybody. I want everybody to
give you the respect and the honor
you deserve. I want papers like the
Tribune- American to stop sniping
at you. I want the cheap comedians
to stop being able to get a laugh
just by asking, ‘Is Dr. Treyer in
the house?* I want... oh— ” She
made a gesture of despair.

Ted didn’t smile. “I’ll get it,
someday— everything you want. I’m
young and healthy and expect to
live a long time. And I will cer-
tainly live to see all our critics dead
or converted.” He gestured to the
left wall, the gold-plashed sleeve
falling back from his golden-brown
arm. “Have you ever wondered
why I have a picture of— of all pos-
sible people — the Reverend Cotton
Mather? You know what a terrible
old man he was, a devil-in-robes.
When he said the witches in Salem
should be put to death, he was
cheered. And when he— somehow,

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

45

from somewhere— got a correct idea
in his hard old head, and urged
inoculation against smallpox, why,
the ones who’d cheered him a htde
while before, they threw rocks at
his manse and smashed all the
windows.

“I keep it as a lesson. If I were
to go out this minute and preach
that . . . oh”— he groped for words—
“that all red-head^ Swedes, let’s
say, have inferior genes, and should-
n’t be allowed to marry, or should
be interned, every yahoo and gut-
ter gorilla who curses me now
would stand up and cheer.”

She nodded, rather sadly. The
recorded peal of bells, which had
replaced the harsh ring on all but
the most old-fashioned phones,
sounded their silvery tones. With
a swift “Excuse me,” Treyer
switched on. A fat, furious face
filled the screen.

“Doc-tor Treyer!” The face lit
up with enraged glee, the voice
grated out its heavy sarcasm. “Or
should I say Doctor Knox? Or
Mister Boik? Or Mister Hare?”

Treyer clicked his tongue. “What
the devil—” He diddled the switch.
No calls like this were supposed to
get through to him, but there was
a new girl at the Intake, and— the
face flickered, but remained. Trey-
er gave up. “All right. What do
you want?”

“We want Blue Hotaling’s body
—that’s what we want. We’re gun-
na swear out a injunction, see. You
better not move him to none ot your

gahdamn vet schools in the mean-
while, see? He wasn’t rich”— the
face had evidendy read the front-
page Trib editorial— “but he’s got
lotsa friends. So—” Treyer diddled
the switch again, this dme the face
and voice vanished, were replaced
by the apologetic Intake operator.
Treyer muttered that it was all
right, switched off.

He walked over and put his arms
on Bcety’s shoulders. “You see?
You and I can take it. But suppose
we did have a child? Everydme
some other child would quarrel
with him, they’d throw it in his
face: ‘Your old man is a grave-
robber.’ Don’t you /(now that?”
She said not a word, but looked
at him with sorrow deep in her
eyes. He leaned closer, pressed his
lips to her forehead.

In the kaleidoscope of colors the
black robes of Judge Mountree
drew every eye. There was talk,
from time to time— shop talk, never
making the public media— that the
American judiciary was going to
abandon black for scarlet. But if
this imitation of judgely garb in
other countries was planned, it had
yet to take place. Aside from the
robe there was nothing unusual
about Mountree’s appearance. He
listened attendvely— or, at any rate,
with every appearance of attendon
—to the lawyers.

MacKenna, for the lAM, wear-
ing the blue with golden sunbursts
which was almost his trademark.

46

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

said that he was going to trace the
background of the case before them.
“Although it is the same back-
ground which I have traced for
several hundred similar cases,” he
said, “the continued appearance of
similar cases indicates that memory
is short and requires continual re-
freshment. So— with your honor’s
indulgence . .

At the time the science of anat-
omy and of post-mortem section
was first beginning its development
[MacKenna said], the only source
of bodies for the purpose of in-
struction was the gallows. The
supply of executed criminals not
being sufficient, a certain member
of the medical profession in another
country— Dr. Knox of Scotland, to
be precise— prompted by a zeal
which caused him to transgress the
too-rigid laws of the time, con-
tracted with a pair of ne’er-do-wells
to purchase from them bodies taken
clandestinely from graveyards.
These two Resurrection Men, as
they were then, with a rather grisly
and irreverent humor, called, find-
ing the physical labor of redigging
graves and lifting out the heavy
coffins . . .

(Dolly Hotaling, wearing a chic
mourning-gown of pink and pur-
ple, gave a dying-fall groan and
went stiff. Commotion in court.
Dolly carried out. Order restored,
MacKenna, still bland and benign
and pink of face, continued.)

. . . began to murder such poor
and friendless folk as fortune sent

their way. They sold the bodies to
Dr. Knox for his anatomy classes.
Their discovery, the conviction
and execution of one of them,
the other having saved his life by
giving evidence for the Crown-all
these dreadful events produced a
change in attitudes. Thereafter,
both in Great Britain and the
United States, the laws were al-
tered so as to allow the bodies of
those who died with none to claim
their last remains— to allow these
bodies to be assigned to medical
schools for scientific purposes. This
method sufficed for well over a
century— for almost a century and
a half.

But then it seemed that, in one
way at least, science had outdis-
tanced itself. It had drawn on the
bodies of paupers, vagrants— peo-
ple of that unfortunate class. The
homeless, those without family or
estate. We could well be proud
that the advance of the American
Economy— the American Way of
Life— the progress of our social
therapies on every front— had more
or less completely eliminated this
source. Source of— ah—
for post-mortem sections. This
posed a considerable problem. It
affected not only the medical
schools, but every living American
—particularly if he wished to re-
main a living American. How
could the science of anatomy— of
surgery— be taught without proper
subjects.?

The various medical schools, to-

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

47

gether with the American Medical
Association, met and, with admir-
able foresight, drew up the histor-
ical “Preliminary Agreement on
Research Rights.” The rest we all
know. The only way that a person
may now legally dispose of post-
humous rights in his or her own
body is through the Institute for
American Medicine, chartered by
Congress for this very purpose. A
very sizeable sum of money is paid
— although the amount, of course,
varies according to the age and
general physical condition of the
legator — and the fingerprints are
recorded in the great central file
in Washington. I may add, since
it applies specifically to this case
we are now considering, that it is
also legally impossible for a next-of-
kin to dispose of research rights in
the body of a loved one, except to
the lAM.

The Congress has supplied the
necessary implimentive legislation,
in the Medical Research Act. It is
mandatory for the fingerprints of
every person who dies to be checked
via telephoto with the great central
files. If Reversion in the body was
sold, the body must be turned over
to the lAM. No sale can ever be
canceled or invalidated.

I think all right-thinking Amer-
icans will agree that the lAM per-
forms its great public service with
superb tact and efficiency. Funeral
services according to all denomina-
tional usages are allowed before
possession is taken of the body, and

time is even allotted for additional
ceremonies in case the legator had
belonged to a fraternal organization
with which funerary pomps are cus-
tomary. Following the completion
of the period of educational useful-
ness, the remains are then cremated
— except in the case of Orthodox
Jews and Roman Catholics, where
burial is respectfully granted — and
the ashes are returned for disposal
according to the desires of the next-
of-kin; or else they are placed with-
out extra charge in the various re-
gional columbaria.

The results are as follows: First,
that medical science is enabled
properly to educate its students.
Second, that rivalry in purchase of
bodies or of Reversional Research
Rights in bodies has been com-
pletely eliminated. A fair alloca-
tion is made among all the medical
schools of the country. Third, that
the unsavory black market in post-
mortem subjects, which flourished
briefly before the passage of the
Medical Research Act, has been
completely eliminated. It is now
several years since it was last found
necessary to prosecute a so-called
“Body Broker.” It is still, alas, oc-
casionally necessary to act to pre-
vent clandestine burials, particu-
larly on the part of certain obdurate
religious groups, but we are confi-
dent that the passing of time and
the inevitable spread of public en-
lightenment will see the end of this
before very long.

Now, the facts in the case of the

48

late Bluford Hotaling are quite
clear. His widow, Mrs. Dora — or
“Dolly” — ^Hotaling, or someone act-
ing for her, called the regional of-
fice of the I AM and requested an
agent. The agent was sent, you will
hear his testimony, and will be able
to satisfy yourself that neither guile
nor duress was used in obtaining
Mrs. Hotaling’s signature. There
is, therefore, no grounds at all for
granting an injunction to interfere
with a process sanctioned by law,
and essential to the physical well-
being of the great American people.

While Ted Treyer listened to
MacKenna he kept rubbing the
bruised place on his forehead. He
felt almost no pain, having gotten
medical care almost at once. But
he continued to rub it. He scowled,
thinking of what had happened.

It was only a block from the
lAM Building. The moving-over-
head was being repaired and it was
necessary to hold up traffic to allow
pedestrians to walk across the
street. Three hulking men — house-
wreckers or piano-movers, by the
looks of them — came clumping
down the escalator from the m-o.
Treyer had a few theories about
people who walked on escalators
— ^probably these three even walked
on the m-o — they were unadjust-
able, they . . . but before he could
consider the theories, they spotted
him. One of them was the fellow
who’d called him at the office. His
eyes went wide with recognition.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“There’s that sonofabitchbas-
tard!” he yelled. “He’s tryin a make
a gedawayl”

And they swarmed up to his car,

shouting, “Ya Boikenhare!

Ya gahdamn ghoul! Graverobba!”
Treyer tried simultaneously to roll
up the shatterproof bubble and to
dial Emergency on the dashboard,
but in trying to do both he failed
to do cither well. The bubble went
part way up and stopped, and the
dial went red, showing he’d
botched the call.

“Doctuh T’eadaw Body-snatchin
Treyer!” the three gorillas howled,
boosting one of their number up to
climb over the stalled bubble. “You
pulled ya last doidy trick — you ain’t
chcatin no maw gahdamn wid-
ows!”

They shrieked for his blood while
other pedestrians called out their
approval and those riding in the
other stalled cars cither sat scowling
at him or joined the chorus.

“That’s Treyer,” he heard one
well-groomed woman say. “You
know — that awful person who—”

“Must’ve got some poor widow
to sign when she didn’t know what
she was doing — drugged her, may-
be— and I guess those arc the dead
woman’s sons — ”

“Go on— give it to him good!
The dirty Burke and Hare!”

And the lead gorilla, standing on
the shoulders of his sweating com-
panions, leaned far forward and
struck at Treyer with his huge fist.
Ted fell back. He was fumbling in

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

49

the compartment for his gun
(thinking, all the while, This will be
a lovely scandal, if / shoot the sod!)
when the bubble suddenly sprang
up, dumping the housewrecker and
his friends into the street. Traffic
cleared a split second later, and he
sped away.

He’d been insulted before, of
course, and once, in the slums of
Madison Avenue (the advertising
business had long since moved up
to Pleasantville), he’d had a bag of
garbage dropped on him from a
window. But this was the first time
a direct bodily attack had ever been
made on him. He shivered, rub-
bed his forehead.

The lawyer for the House-
wrecker’s Union (or whatever or-
ganization it was which was front-
ing for Hotaling’s friends) was a
ruddy-faced man in eggshell-and-
green. Treyer had never seen him
before. He painted the domestic life
of Big Blue and Dolly in such terms
that the latter found herself (now
that she was back in the courtroom,
with a cup of water in one hand
and a hankie in another) weeping
steadily. It wasn’t true, of course,
but it ought to have been. She
wept for the happy life Mr. Anger
described, a life she’d never had.

There she sat, weeping then as
she is weeping now [Anger
chanted] — the body of her faithful,
hardworking husband barely cold.
There is a ring at the door — a
harsh, old-fashioned ring, for the

Hotalings, unlike Dr. Theodore
Treyer, do not live in a luxurious
modern apartment with a 3D
screen to announce callers with its
rich and melodious peal of bells.
The poor widow, of course, is too
broken with grief to answer it.
This task is done for her by a
neighbor, Mrs. Linny Hart. In
walks — or perhaps I should say,
in crawls — ^a strange man. We
know who it was. She — at that most
dreadful moment — did not. How
did he know that the Dark Angel
had just been a-calling in this hum-
ble apartment? Doubtless he has
his methods. Doubtless the vultures
know when to swoop — and the
hyenas — and the jackals.

From what loathsome bit of chic-
anery did this agent come? Had
he gotten the trembling signature
of some drink-sodden wretch on his
wicked contract? Had he slipped
gold into the hand of some callow
college-boy? Had he found, had
he smelled out, let us say, some un-
happy young wife or husband who
had lost the paycheck or the house-
keeping money in a gambling den
— the proprietor of which doubtless
works hand-in-filthy-hand with
such agents? No matter. The tale,
whatever it was, cannot be any but
an evil one.

Into the house of grief and sor-
row comes the lAM man, his eyes
quick to note the signs of honest
poverty — ^for I say that poverty
does still exist, despite my learned
colleague’s ingenuous disclaimer to

50

the contrary. He notes the dazed
and anguished expression on poor
Dolly’s care-worn face. He even
reads her mind ! — no hard task for
him, he’s done it before.

What is on her mind? Is she
mourning the loss of a breadwin-
ner? Is she worrying how to pay
the next month’s rent? Oh, no. Oh,
no. It is not of her own concerns.
How will / bury him, is what she
thinks of. How will I get the funds
to give him a proper burial. In-
stantly the lAM agent whips out
his infamous document and pre-
sents it to the confused widow.
''Insurance*' he says. "Sign here.
Cash payment." And — innocently,
trustingly — she signs. Imagine,
then, the scene at the Haven of
Rest Memorial Park Chapel: imag-
ine the widow’s shock, her fright,
her terror — on finding out that the
so-called “Insurance” paper was in
reality a Reversion Contract, and
that [he half-turned towards the
widow, and then ostentatiously
lowered his voice] his body, before
it can be committed to the clean
fires, will be made the plaything
of medical students.

Your Honor will recall the deci-
sion of New Jersey Chief Justice
Arthur Vanderbilt in 1957 when
a large corporation applied for the
disinterment of a body. The cor-
poration sought to perform an
autopsy in order to question the
decision in a workman’s compen-
sation case. The learned Chief Jus-
tice said: "In the search for the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

truth we must not disregard the
problems of religion, the wishes of
the decedent, the sensitiveness of
loved ones and friends or even the
elements of public health and weU
fare. The law, then, will not reach
into the grave in search of 'the
facts* except in the rarest of cases,
and not even then unless it is
clearly necessary, and there is rea-
sonable probability that such a
violation of the sepulcher will es-
tablish what is sought!*

In a number of cases, decades
later, this decision was cited to
prevent the lAM from taking pos-
session of bodies, and it was ruled
that in such cases the lAM could
sue for the return of whatever
moneys it had paid for Rights of
Research and Reversion in and of
the bodies in question.

Later, of course, Mr. Justice
Blakeney — who has lately gained
more fame for another judicial
opinion-overruled these decisions,
ruled in favor of the lAM. He said,
“the elements of public health and
welfare” required that the lAM
be upheld. He did not inquire —
but we do now — why it is that not
a single member of the medical
profession has, in the last ten years,
signed an lAM Contract. Why
not? Is it because they know it is
unnecessary? Or is it simply be-
cause they do not need the money ?
Is it only the bodies of the poor
which are to be rifled from the
tomb? This is “class legislation”
at its wickedest 1

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

Another aspect of the matter is
the obdurate refusal of the lAM to
permit the importation of cadavers.
Unprejudiced experts have testi-
fied that enough such cadavers are
and always will be available to
make unnecessary the signing of
an R. & R. Contract by a single
American. But Dr. Treyer will not
allow it. He sits pat on Article
XXIII of his charter — the one
known universally as the No For-
eign Corpse Clause. One would
have thought that chauvinism was
absent from the scientific mind.
Either one is wrong — or Dr.
Treyer’s is not a scientific mind.

We ask your honor to grant an
injunction preventing the I AM
from disposing of the body of the
late Bluford Hotaling until a
higher court shall decree otherwise.
In the meanwhile, we intend to
press for a decision from such a
court declaring the Medical Re-
search Act unconstitutional on the
grounds that the right of contract
cannot extend into the charnel
house, that if there can be no right
of property in a living man there
can be none in a dead man, and
that such contracts — like Restrictive
Covenants — while not illegal, are
legally unenforceable.

Let us have mercy on the dead.
For — ^in the words of the poet —

Strength fails unto the grave.

Worms have fed on Hector
brave.

Dust hath closid Helenas eye.

I am sic\. I must die.

5F

Lord, have . . . mercy • . . upon
... us.

There was a long, long silence.
Finally, as Judge Mountree cleared
his throat, MacKenna leaned over
and whispered to Treyer, “Anger
has talentr

Treyer whispered, “See if you can
get him for us!*

The Judge said, “Well, the court
will take it under advisement. And,
in the meanwhile: where is the de-
ceased at present? In the mortuary
of the Institute for American Med-
icine? He had better remain there.”
And he rustled out.

After that there was the hearing
in connection with the scuffle at the
funeral. Cases involving the slug-
ging of lAM agents were common
enough and usually attracted no
particular attention from the com-
munications media. But the Hota-
ling Case, thanks largely to the
Greiss Chain's Tribune- American,
was front-page, front-screen news.
The interview with the Associate
President in connection with his
meeting with the Assistant Presi-
dent on the proposed admission of
Tannu-Tuva to the UN was
switched to the side screens. Few
viewers bothered to arrange their
mirrors so as to be able to glance
at both.

Treyer and MacKenna pressed
their way slowly through the
crowded corridor, Ted with his
head low to avoid the 3D camera-
men. A crew was interviewing

52

someone just ahead of them — a
sort of indoor version of the man-
in-the-street.

“ — ^guy was tellin me, an this
guy he \nows, see? he was tellin
me that the Boikenhares got a
quoda, see? they got this quoda an
if it ain’t filled so they loose their
jobs. That’s why they hang around
the race tracks an the hawsrooms,
see, they get these poor slobs which
they’re down on their luck, an ged
um ta sign them lousy contracks.”

Although Treyer had heard and
read all this a thousand times, it
was suddenly too much for him.
He shoved forward and thrust his
head in between the man and the
camera-microphone.

“I want the people to know that
this man is lying!” he cried.

“Now, waida-min-MXjtV'' the man
protested.

The 3D operator brightened.
“This is Dr. Theodore Treyer, isn’t
it? The head of the lAM. Would
you care to comment. Doctor — ”

“Yes, I’d care to comment! This
fellow should be down on his knees
thanking me and all of us for the
vital and necessary work which we
are doing, instead of mouthing
these lies. A generation ago he’d
have been repeating the old slan-
ders against the Red Cross — that
they charged wounded soldiers for
blood-transfusions, and so on.” The
crowd gathered around and began
to mutter. Treyer raised his voice.

“In every generation there has to
be at least one man who gets the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

dirty end of the stick, who has to
bear the brunt of ignorance and
fanaticism and reaction — and it
looks like this time it’s me. Well,
I want you to know that I’m in
good company! Men like Galileo —
Semmelweiss — Pasteur — ” Some-
one, with a muffled curse, gave him
a low, swift punch. He turned and
seized the man — or the one he
thought was the man — and grap-
pled with him. And then the mob
was all around him, and then he
went down.

That evening he lay on the divan
in his apartment. Beety was across
the room, making him a drink.
The phone-screen was on and a
man who looked like Warren G.
Harding was speaking to him. On
the floor lay a crumpled copy of
the Tribune- American, the front
page showing Treyer tussling with
the man in the corridor. The cap-
tion: “GET DOWN ON YOUR
KNEES TO ME,” SAYS BURKE
AND HARE CHIEF.

Dr. Lars P. Dana, the current
President of the AMA, had been
talking for ten minutes and had
begun to repeat himself. “Tact,
tact, TACT!” bellowed Dr. Dana.
“You’ve got to keep your agents
away from funerals. You’ve got to
stop shooting off your mouth to re-
porters. You’ve got to stop brawling
in public — twice in one day, well,
I mean. And on this day, too,
really.”

“What else have I got to do?”

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

53

Ted asked, softly, but not politely.

Dana’s mouth worked. Then he
turned red. “Listen here, young
man—”

“My ears are ringing from all the
listening I’ve been — ”

“The honor and prestige of the
medical profession may mean little
to you, you’re not a member of it,
but—”

Ted sat up, wincing. Beety came
over and handed him his drink.
Dana scowled. “The lAM was
headed, if you remember, by a
member of the medical profession
before I took it over. And a nice
hash he made of it, too. Remem-
ber? If the AM A is willing to
spend a few millions on a cam-
paign of public education — ”

And so it went, back and forth,
like a shutdecock, until they both
grew tired and switched off. Ted
lay back and groaned. Then he
reached out his arms to Beety. She
didn’t come. Instead, she asked,
slowly, “Ted. Explain something to
me.

“Can’t I explain to you, after-
wards?'*

She shook her head. **Why won’t
you allow the importation of for-
eign subjects?”

He sighed. “Because dissecting
dead coolies isn’t the best possible
training for a physician unless he’s
going to spend his life treating live
coolies.”

She nodded, but apparently there
was something else on her mind.
He didn’t want to hear it. “It’s

been a long, weary day, love,” he
said. “I want you.”

It was seldom that he even had
to speak of his need or desire for
her. She sensed it. But now she
stayed where she was. “Ted — ” she
began again. He went limp, turned
away. “Ted, today — this afternoon,
I mean — I went with Edith Whit-
ney to the Childs’ Hospital Clinic.
Her little baby has a clubfoot, and
she’s all broken up about it.”

He said, coldly, still not looking
at her, “No reason for emotion.
The condition is completely oper-
able.”

“Yes, but still . . . Well, anyway,
we were talking to a Dr. Kronen-
gold-”

Ted said he knew him. “Trouble-
maker,” he said.

“Well, he was wonderful to
Edith. And he said he was going
to show us something, but wc
weren’t to get frightened. A good
thing he warned us . . . because
I’d have sworn it was a baby’s
footr

Treyer muttered, “ ‘Don’t bother
to wrap it up: I’ll eat it on the way
home.’ ”

Beety smiled, briefly and uncer-
tainly. “But Dr. Kronengold said
it wasn’t real — he said it was syn-
thetic. Isn’t it a funny thing — well,
I mean, curious — that people will
sign over their own bodies, but not
those of children?” Treyer grunted.
“So it’s almost impossible to get
subjects for dissection or even non-
contractual autopsy — ^in pediatrics^

54

I mean. But you surely know all
that. Well, as a result, Kronengold
and a few of his associates — ”

“Ginzberg, Felberman, and
Cohen,” said Treyer, with a pe-
culiar emphasis.

She stared at him. Then she went
on, unhappy, but determined.
“They’ve devised these simulacra
to help them in their research on
crippled children. He says they can
duplicate any physical condition.”

“At more than half the cost of
natural subjects — and at a nice little
profit to Drs. Kronengold, Ginz-
berg, Felberman and Cohen.”

Doggedly, Beety went on. “The
cost doesn’t matter. What I think
does matter is that if the AMA will
subsidize them in their work, you
can get out of all this.”

Painfully, Treyer swung himself
to a sitting position. “The AMA
has a fifty-year contract with the
lAM,” he said, “and I don’t intend
to release a single day of it. As for
‘getting out of all this’ — where do
you think I could go? I’m notori-
ous. I’m the nation’s top ghoul.
Mothers scare their children with
me. I’ve stepped on too many toes
and bloodied too many noses.
There’s no place for me except the
place I’ve battled out for myself.
Does an ex-whore, once she’s gone
respectable, hire her ex-pimp? I
can*t ‘get out of all this’ — because
if I do, the only way I can go is
down.”

She shook her head. After a min-
ute she said, “But if you lead the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

movement ... I mean, the public
will forget . . .”

He smacked his hand into the
divan. “Damn the public! I spit on
the pubhcl You saw how they
handled me today. What are they
but oxen? And what is the natural
fate of oxen, but the butcher ? Who
signs my contracts ? Not the people
who matter. Riffraff, scum, house-
wreckers, beanpickers — nobody
who matters.”

She said, “Everybody matters.
. . .” She said, “Then it is just the
other way around, isn’t it?”

He got to his feet, stretched his
lithe, golden-brown body. He said,
** What's just the other way
around? ’’ And he padded across the
floor towards her, a crooked grin
on his face.

“Don’t — ” She put out her hand,
stiffly. He stopped, puzzled. “I
mean, it’s just the opposite from the
way you’ve explained it. It isn’t the
newspapers or the 3D or the mobs
who stand in the way of progress.
It isn’t the ignorant who want to
hold the clock back. It’s you: Theo-
dore Treyer, Doctor of Science,
Director of the Institute for Amer-
ican Medicine. You’re the one who
represents reaction. You’re the king
of the castle, with your huge salary
and your army of agents who say
‘Yes, chief’ and your lawyers and
your office and your three-level
apartment. You’d go right on rob-
bing graves? But you can’t say it’s
for the sake of science anymore.
You can’t hide behind that. . . .”

UP THE CLOSE AND DOUN THE STAIR

55

He took advantage of her en-
grossment in what she was saying
to pad closer. He reached out now,
and put his hands on her.

“It isn’t so,” he said, softly, “And
I’ll explain to you just how and
why. But not now. Later.” She
relaxed, slowly, in his hands. He
drew her to him, unprotesting but
cold.

“We’ll do it your way,” he said.

Her face brightened. But they
had different things in mind.

“I’ll give you that baby you’ve
been wanting,” he said. “Free-born
or in wedlock — whichever you pre-
fer.”

Suddenly she was standing away
from him. Quite a distance away.

She said, “No.”

His face grew dark. He swayed,
began to move forward. “Why
not?” he asked.

“You already said it I won’t have
a child by a ghoul.”

His head snapped back. She went
on, “As long as I thought it was
necessary, I could stand for any-

thing. But now that I know it’s
not science — ^not medical necessity
— but your own greed and ego only
— I can’t stand for any of it. I shud-
dered, just then, when you touched
me. And whenever I think of the
times before — how close I came
to bearing your child — I’ll shudder
again. . . . I’ll fight you, you know.
You’ve got to lose.”

He watched her in silence as she
moved towards the door. Then he
cried out her name. She turned.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t.” But she
said nothing as she went out.

The city, as he looked out from
his window, was dark. It was full
of people who hated him, feared
him — ^but over whom he had
power. “I’ll fight!” he cried out
to the silent city. “I’ll fight! If I
fall, I’ll fall like Lucifer! If I can’t
be loved, then let me be hated. I
can feed on that, if not on the
other — ” But then, far below, he
heard a car start off. “It’s her,” he
whispered. And he began to weep.

HELP WANTED -

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are not being adequately supplied with copies of FANTASY & SCIENCE
FICTION.

If your dealer does not have it, you will be doing a real service for us—
for the dealer— and perhaps for yourself, if you will send us his name and
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SCIENCE FICTION, 527 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y*

Dentistry is one science which has been regrettably neglected in science
fiction; and P&SF feels an obligation to fill this dental gap. Douglas
Angus* About Time to Go South (F&SF, October, 1937) stressed the
importance of dentistry in a period of post- Atomic collapse; and now
Gordon Dickson takes young Jeffrey Willoughby, D.D.S., into Space,
where his art solves a problem for an agreeable brace of symbiotic races
— who in return solve Jeff*s own personal, embarrassing and wholly
extra-dental problem. Ifs all, as you will learn, simply

A Matter of Technique

by GORDON R. DICKSON

Jeffrey Willoughby lowered his
copter down through the soft,
moonlit summer night to the silver
landing pad alongside the Dirksen
residence. The Dirksen residence
was dark. The copter landed with
an almost imperceptible jar. Jeffrey
cleared his throat, gave a com-
pletely unnecessary final fiddle to
the controls and turned his head
to look at Pat Dirksen.

Pat looked at him.

There was silence in the copter
cab. Jeffrey cleared his throat.

“Well,” said Pat. “Isn’t it nice
out, tonight?”

The scent of her perfume raced
up his nostrils and gave a healthy
spin to his senses. Her dark hair
poured around her slim shoulders
like molten jet in the dim light.
Her lips were soft, half-parted and

mysterious. Her breasts stirred un-
der the summer tunic. She was ob-
viously waiting.

“Fine.” said Jeffrey.

“Well-” said Pat. She shifted a
little into the corner of the seat
and lifted her chin slightly in his
direction. Her lips parted a bit
more.

Jeffrey cleared his throat again.

“I like you, Jeff,” said Pat.

“Oh?” said Jeffrey in a slighdy
strangled voice.

“I feel as if I’ve known you for
years.”

“Uh ... you do?”

“Years and years. Well—” said
Pat, wriggling slighdy on the seat
of the copter.

“W-well . . .” stammered Jeffrey.

“Well-”

“Well . .

56

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

57

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Jeffrey!’*
snapped Pat. “Can’t you say any-
thing but *weir?”

“Well . . said Jeffrey. Pat snap-
ped suddenly upright on the seat
of the copter, as if she had been
jerked straight by a string.

*'Six wee^sT she cried furiously.

“I beg your pardon?” Jeffrey
quavered.

“Six weeks!” Pat slammed open
the door of the copter and bounced
out onto the landing pad. She
slammed the door back shut again
and addressed him through the
open window. “Six weeks we’ve
been going out almost every night
and all you do is sit there and say
*well! What do you think I’m
made out of— cotton candy? If I
hear you say that word *welV once
again I’ll scream! What’s wrong
with you anyway?”

“Well . . began Jeffrey.

Pat screamed. It was a good
scream. An upstairs light went on
in the Dirksen house.

“Pat!” yelled Jeffrey in alarm,
tumbling his long lean body in
panic out of the copter in pursuit.
“Don’t-I mean-”

“Stay away from me!” yelped
Pat, backing off in the direction of
the front door. “Go away! Go
far away! Don’t ever call me
again!”

“But how’ll I get in touch with
you, then?” babbled Jeffrey. “I
mean-when am I going to see you
again?”

“Never!” cried Pat, fumbling

with the door before her. She got it
open. “Never, never, never, never!"'

And the thunderous slam of the
door behind her put a period to
her words.

“Dr. Jeffrey Lane Willoughby?”
said the Space Service captain,
dubiously.

“Yes.” Haggard, hollow-eyed and
with desperate lines around the
mouth, Jeffrey tottered before the
desk in the recruitment center.

“Sit down,” said the captain.
Jeffrey dropped into a chair. The
captain regarded the papers before
him with a bewildered eye. “You
are a dentist. Doctor?”

“And a member of the reserve.
Yes,” said Jeff.

“I realize that,” said the captain.
He was a lean, rather pale, but at
the same time hard-looking man of
about Jeffrey’s age. His uniform fit
him like a sheath on a knife. “It’s
just that— you realize— well, the
service pay for your grade”— he
consulted the papers— “lieutenant,
in your case, is only eight thousand
a year.”

“I know,” said Jeffrey.

“And you must be making twice
that in civilian practice.”

“Three times,” said Jeffrey.
“That’s beside the point. I want to
go on active duty. You do need
dentists in the Service, don’t you?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Particularly out on the new
planets— with exploratory parties?
Light-years from Earth?”

58

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Indeed, yes,” said the captain.

“Fine,” said Jeffrey feverishly.
“Sign me up. As far out as you can
send me, please. Do you have such
a thing as a twenty-year hitch? I
couldn’t sign up for life, could I?
I mean—”

“Just a second, please. Here, have
a cigaret,” said the captain.

“Thanks, I don’t smoke.”

“Drink?”

“No, thanks. And I’ve had break-
fast. What I want is—”

“Please, doctor,” said the captain.
“I promise you I can assign you to
active duty as far out as you want
to go. We’re crying for medical
and dental officers nowadays in
Exploration. It’s just that for the
sake of the Service we ought to
know why you want to give up a
lucrative practice and put on a
uniform at much less pay. Usually
we have to fight like hell even to
draft men in your position. Now
tell me : why do you want to go on
active duty?”

“Why? Oh . . Jeffrey gulped.
“Well— uh, to be frank with you—
well, you see— all my life— girls— ”

“You aren’t in some jam involv-
ing a criminal action toward some
woman?” inquired the captain,
peering at him.

“Oh, no!” cried Jeffrey. “You
don’t understand. Women — well . . .
Look,” he wound up miserably,
“can’t we just say I want to get
away from a woman?”

“We can, of course,” said the
captain. “And, as I say, needing

dentists as we do. I’m not going to
argue. You’re sure there’s nothing
more you want to tell me, though?”

“Positive!” said Jeffrey, with ex-
plosive fervor.

“Well, then, if you’ll stand up
and raise your right hand—”

“Welcome aboard. Doctor!” said
Captain Lyse, cheerfully shaking
Jeffrey’s hand. Jeffrey was more
than a litde pale and unsteady on
his feet, in spite of the fine stiff
creases of his new uniform. He
made quite a contrast to the cap-
tain of the E. S. Galactic, who in
spite of some forty-odd years, was
tanned and muscular in fatigue
shorts and T-shirt. “Sit down.”

“Uh— thank you,” said Jeffrey,
wobbling into a chair. “I had no
idea they could transport you so
fast nowadays— I mean—”

“Oh, this instantaneous transfer
system has its drawbacks,” said
Lyse, heartily, “but it’s fine for
anything up to three hundred
pounds in Earth-weight. After that,
the power involved— here, drink
this.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jeffrey swal-
lowed.

“Something wrong?” inquired
Lyse, interestedly. Jeffrey wheezed.

“Was that whisky?” he managed
to whisper after a minute or so.

“Bourbon. A blend,” said the
captain. “Good, wasn’t it? Just the
thing for the collywobbles.” He
capped the bottle and set it aside
with an air of satisfaction.

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

59

“Yes,” husked Jeffrey.

“Feeling better now, eh? Well,
we’re certainly glad to have you
with us on the Galactic, Doc. We
haven’t had doctor or dentist on
this ship since the last voyage. We
were supposed to get a replace-
ment before we shipped out, but
you know how short-handed they
are in your department. If you’ll
just hand me your papers— those
things you’re carrying in your hand
there.”

“Oh,” said Jeffrey, handing them
over.

“Thanks. Um— W// assign . . .
E. S. Galactic . . . Pending further
duty . . .' Yes, yes, all in customary
order—

“What?” inquired Jeffrey, staring.

“ 'Assigned to temporary duty
only pending further departmental
decision'—hut that means you aren’t
permanent!”

“It does?” said Jeff.

“Of course it does.”

“Nonsense,” said Jeff, firmly. “I
don’t know why that enlistment
officer did that; but I’m in for good,
Captain. I’ll probably die in the
Service.”

“I don’t see how you could do
that,” said the captain, doubtfully.
“Still— don’t let me argue you out
of it,” he added hastily. “We’ll just
go ahead as if you were permanent.
The men will be glad to see you;
and then there’s this ’ittle ’ing of
mine— oo see? ’Ook ’ight up ’ere ’y
’y ’inger— it’s ’ore—”

“You haven’t been brushing your

teeth properly,” said Jeflf, looking.

“I ’ush ’y ’eeth— I mean, I brush
my teeth every day,” said the cap-
tain indignantly.

“Well, you aren’t doing it prop-
erly, or long enough, or hard
enough,” said Jeff. “Your gums
need exercise. When they don’t get
it, little pockets of infection like
that are liable to form. If you’ll fix
me up with a technician to help
me out. I’ll put you down for an
appointment tomorrow morning
and give your teeth a good scaling.
And show you how to use a brush.”

“Uh— of course,” said Lyse. “If
you’ll come along with me. Doc-
tor . . .”

“ — next,” said Jeffrey, one bright
morning several weeks later.

“There isn’t any next, sir,” re-
plied his technician, a lean, mourn-
ful individual named Hokerman.
“That’s all the patients there were,
today.”

“You mean I’ve finally caught
up?” said Jeffrey. “Well! Well . . .
I think I’ll hang up my jacket,
drop down to the Officer’s Rec and
have one to cool the tubes as the
saying goes.”

“Yes sir,” said Hokerman.

Jeff went down to the bar.

“One to cool the tubes,” he said
to the enlisted man behind the
bar there. The Officer’s Rec was
deserted at this early hour. “How’s
it lifting, Smitty?”

“Fine, sir,” said the barman.
“What kind of bourbon today, sir?”

60

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Oh, any old jet-wash you hap-
pen to have handy. Make it a
double. I’m getting rock-happy
from being stuck here so long.”

“You might get out and take a
look at the native villagers, sir.”

“Might flip myself dirtside for a
quick scan at that. I haven’t been
outside the hull since I beamed in.
What kind of gooks are they,
Smitty?”

“Pretty human, Doctor. I don’t
know how they rate on the anthro
scale, but I can’t see any difference.
And their women ... Of course
those elephant-sized sheep dogs
with tusks they lead around are
something different. They’re alien
as you like.”

“Women, eh?”

“Yes sir.”

“Fire me another double burst
of that happy-juice, Smitty.
Women, eh? Well, maybe I better
stay safely aboard. It was a woman
that caused me to end up out here,
Smitty. Didn’t know that, did
you?”

“No sir. Here you are, sir.”

“Yep. That’s the way it is. You
know how it goes. You go on lov-
ing and leaving them— what the
hell, after all, I’m as human as the
next stud— and then one of them
gets you in a tight spot and starts
putting the squeeze on. To start
with, it’s fun, then you get tired
of good-looking females chasing
you all the time and you tell ’em
straight: Jet off, woman-‘**

“Attention Dr. Willoughby!”

broke in the squawk box above the
bar. “Attention Dr. Willoughby!
You are wanted in the Captain’s
office. You are wanted in the Cap-
tain’s office, immediately.”

“Well,” said Jeff, tossing down
his second drink and choking only
slightly. “Guess I got to fire all and
travel. See you later, Smitty.”

“Yes sir.”

Jeff went out.

“Oh, hello. Doc,” said Captain
Lyse, as Jeff walked in. “I want
you to meet one of the local people
who has a problem you may be
able to help solve. Miss Jjarja
Leonla, Dr. Willoughby, our den-
tist.”

“Gug,” said Jeff.

“How do you do?” inquired Miss
Jjarja Leonla, in musical tones.

“D-d-d-do?” stuttered Jeff. “Oh-
uh— er— fine. Fine. Fine. Fine . . .”

“You feeling all right, Doc?” in-
quired Lyse,

“Fine,” said Jeff. “Fine. Uh . . .
fine.”

“You look pretty red in the face.
And you’re sweating. You’re sure—”

“Fine. No. Yes. I mean. Fine,”
said Jeff.

“Well, all right. Now Miss Jjarja
—Doc, Miss Jjarja is over here.”

“Oh, is she?” cried Jeff, wrench-
ing his eyes away from the ceiling,
meeting Miss Jjarja’s violet glance
for a soul-scaring second and look-
ing desperately away again.
“Hello.”

“How do you do?” said Jjarja.

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

61

“Fine,” said Jeflf.

“Yes. Well, the point is,” said
Lyse, a little impatiently, “Miss
Jjarja’s people have a co-culture
with the large beings I believe
you’ve seen mingling with them—
the Asona. Now, her personal
Asona— ”

“Excuse me!” i)roke in JefI des-
perately. “Could I talk to you a
second outside, sir? Please. Sir?”

“Well—” Lyse frowned. “Excuse
us. Miss—” he led the way out into
the corridor and closed the door.
Jeff leaned limply against a wall.
“Well?” demanded the captain.

“Doesn’t she . . . don’t they . . .
I mean,” stammered Jeff, “don’t
she wear any clothes?”

Lyse frowned in bewilderment.

“She’s wearing clothes.”

“But I mean clothesr said Jeff
desperately. “I mean that— er— cover
her— well . .

“Oh, that’s the native costume.
They’re quite used to it.” Lyse
clapped Jeff on the back. “You’ll
get used to it too in no time. I
know— they’re so damn human, par-
ticularly the women. Bothered me
too at first. And this is a particu-
larly beautiful wench. But youll
adjust.”

“I-I will?”

“Certainly. Come on back inside.
. . . Now, Miss Jjarja,” said Lyse,
as they reentered the room, “I know
I don’t have to apologize for your
command of our human tongue,
Suppose you tell Doc here just
what the problem is.”

“Certainly,” tinkled Jjarja. She
swayed toward Jeff, who trembled
visibly. “I am told you are a spe-
cialist in the repair of the dental
area of the body.”

“Body?” said Jeff. “Oh yes. No,
Teeth. Never touch bodies.”

“It is the teeth of which I am
speaking.”

“I try to dress them up a bit,”
babbled Jeff. “Nothing worse than
the naked tooth— that is— are your
teeth bothering you? Open wide—”

“No, no,” murmured Jjarja, like
some gende woodwind distantly
piping in a forest glen. “It is not
my teeth but what you would call
a tooth of my Asona.”

“The point is,” broke in Lyse,
“she wants you to fix one of the
big aliens’ teeth, doc. Do you think
you can do it?”

“What? Oh. I don’t see why
not,” said Jeff, relievedly switching
his gaze to the captain. “Merely a
matter of technique. Of course I’d
have to look at the— uh— Asona,
first.”

“His name is Aloba,” sirened
sofdy Jjarja.

“Well, you go ahead, then, doc,”
said Lyse, with a relieved note in
his voice. “Take as much time as
you want. I understand this Aloba
has gone back to hide himself in
the hills. You’ll be gone a number
of days. Miss Jjarja here will guide
you to him. When you’re ready to
return, just give us a call on your
belt phone, and we’ll send a runa-
bout after you.”

62

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“I see. Thanks,” said Jeff.

“You’ll have to go on foot be-
cause you’ll be searching for Aloba
through the jungle of the hills. A
ship wouldn’t help you.”

“Fine,” said Jeff. “All right.” He
turned to go.

“Doc, for cripe’s sake,” said Lyse.
“That’s the door to my chart
closet.”

“Sorry,” said Jeff, and blundered
out the other way.

“This way,” said Jjarja, some
hours later.

“Uh,” said Jeff. “Miss Jjarja,
maybe you better walk beside me,
instead of leading the way.”

“You would prefer that,
Jeff-er-ey?”

“Much,” said Jeff, closing his
eyes. “Are you back beside me
now— oops!”

“The trail is narrow,” explained
Jjarja, in dulcet tones. “If we walk
side by side, we cannot help touch-
ing each other like that. Does it
disturb you to be touched?”

“Who, me? Of course not. Say,
aren’t we almost there?”

“We have yet some way to go.
We have only been traveling half
a day and I am not even sure that
Aloba will be where I think he will.
He has run away in great shame.”

“Shame?”

“The tooth of his I desire you
to mend. He has two long teeth.
One is broken.”

“Long teeth?”

“What do you call them?” Jjarja

pursed her lips in pretty thought-
fulness. “Tusks?”

“Oh, a tusk.”

“That is it. But do not be dis-
turbed. If he is not at the first
clearing, we can go on in the
morning. I will make us a fine
hammock of creepers. We will be
very warm together.”

*'Nor cried Jeff, in sudden panic.

“But we will,” insisted Jjarja.

“No! I mean— I mean I want my
own hammock. You can have
yours. I’ll have mine.”

“You are strange,” said Jjarja.

They reached the clearing and
stopped for the night. Jjarja made
two soft roomy hammocks of
creepers and suspended them be-
tween handy trees. Jeff tossed for
a while feverishly; but finally fell
off into sleep. The next morning
they took up the trail again. Jjarja,
from certain signs she had dis-
covered around the clearing, was
certain that they would come up
with Aloba at the next one.

“Look,” said Jeff. “How come
he’s running away, anyhow?”

“As I told you yesterday,” said
Jjarja, “he is ashamed. Being an
Asona, poor fellow, he is very sus-
ceptible to shame.”

“Susceptible?”

“You do not know about my
people and the Asona?” said Jjarja.
“I should perhaps explain. Aloba is
a dear, and very intelligent. But he
goes to pieces easily. Asona are
that way. That is why we pair off
with them at an early age, to help

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

63

them out, and soothe them when
they are upset.”

“Oh?” said Jeff. “And what do
’ they do for you in return?”

“Oh, they solve problems and
things,” said Jjarja. “They have
very good memories and they are
good at puzzles and questions.
Now my people are very strong
and capable in the fields of emo-
tions. We are perhaps what you
might call experts.”

“For example?”

“Oh,” said Jjarja. “Now take
yourself.”

“Me?” squeaked Jeff. “What
about me?”

“Well, you are so obviously un-
happy. It is easy for me to see that
you have run away from some emo-
tional situation and are determined
not to face it.”

“Nonsense! Certainly not! I
don’t know what gave you such a
crazy idea, but—”

“Oh, I intuit it,” said Jjarja.

“Well, you intuit wrong!” cried
Jeff. “I never was so happy in my
life. Emotional situation! I don’t
have any emotional situation. And
if I did I wouldn’t run away from
it. And furthermore— what are you
doing?”

“You will sit down here, please,”
said Jjarja, pulling him down on a
soft carpet of moss at the foot of a
huge creeper-hung tree alongside
the pathway.

“What for? What— now what are
you doing?”

“I am rubbing the back of your

neck with my fingers. Lean your
head back, please.”

“Lean back—” Jeff felt the back
of his head come to rest against
something soft and yielding. “No!”
he cried in panic, trying to straight-
en up.

“Yes, yes,” crooned Jjarja, pull-
ing him back down. “Just lie back
for a little while. Do my fingers
feel good on your neck? Don’t
answer, just lie still. Ah, how I
enjoy doing this for you. You are
so kind to let me do it.”

“But-but-”

“There . . . there . . . just lie
still. Do the fingers warm your
neck ? Gendy , . . gently . . .”

“But-”

“Gendy . . , gently . . .”

“—Where am I?” demanded Jeff,
blinking and looking around him.

“We are almost to the clearing
where Aloba will be,” replied
Jjarja’s voice. He turned his head
to stare down at her. They were
marching through the path again,
somewhere in the jungle of the
foothills. The sun was considerably
farther along in the sky than it
had been when he had last seen
it. In fact it now seemed about
early afternoon.

“What happened?” demanded
Jeff.

Jjarja giggled. Jeff broke out in a
cold sweat.

**What happened?** he cried.

“You were upset,” said Jjarja,
softly. “I soothed you.”

64

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“You soothed me so well Fve
been walking in an unconscious
haze for six hours?** yelped Jeff.

“Oh yes. We are experts.*’

Jeff opened his mouth, but no
words came out. He had no words
to come out.

They went across a little ravine
and up a slope, and over the crest
of the slope— and emerged into the
clearing Jjarja had promised. It
was a large, comfortable clearing,
with a litde creek tinkling through
it and downy with moss. At its far
end an enormous creature, from
the rear view exactly resembling an
elephant-sized sheep dog, was
standing with its head buried in
a curtain of creepers.

“There he is!** cried Jjarja, joy-
fully. “Come Jeff-er-ey— ” and she
led the way up to the creature.
“Aloba! I’ve found you.”

“I know,’* replied the creature,
in a voice muffled by the creepers.
“Go away.”

“But it’s just me— just your
Jjarja,” crooned that young lady.
“And I’ve brought a nice human
to help you.”

“I don’t want any help,” replied
Aloba, without moving. “I’m be-
yond help. Go away. I think I’m
going to commit suicide,” After a
second, he added; “And take that
human with you,”

“But he’s a dentist,” protested
Jjarja. “His name is Jeffrey Wil-
loughby, and he can fix you up if
you’ll let him.”

Jeffrey tapped Jjarja on the

shoulder and whispered in her ear.
Pointing at the Asona, he hissed:
“How come ha’s talking in Eng-
lish?”

“Why shouldn’t I talk in Eng-
lish?” retorted the unmoving Alo-
ba. “I heard that. Or Sanskrit or
Lbbrinian?”

“What’s Lbbrinian?” asked Jeff.

“Never mind. Youll find out
someday,” muttered Aloba. “I can
talk any language. I can do any-
thing. If I try, that is.”

“Now, Aloba,” coaxed Jjarja, “it
was silly of you to run off and
hide. You’d think a broken tooth
was the end of the world.”

“Well, I look hideous, don’t I?”
demanded Aloba, amongst the
creepers. “People hide their snickers
when they look at me.”

“They do not I” said Jjarja.

“Oh yes they do. I know. Or else
they pity me. I can’t stand pity.
That’s the final blow.”

“The Asona are very proud,” ex-
plained Jjarja to Jeff.

“It’s not pride, it’s sensitivity— the
other side of the coin of great in-
telligence. I am a genius, human.
All we Asona are. That’s why
we’ve let Jjarja’s people have all
the contact with your race. What?
Expose ourselves to your rude na-
tures? Certainly not.”

“But Aloba,” said Jjarja. “The
nature of Jeff-er-ey is sensitive, like
your own.”

“Nonsense,” mumbled Aloba.
“Utterly impossible.”

“Please turn around,” said Jjarja.

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

“He will snicker.”

“I will not,” said Jeff. “What you
don’t realize— uh—Aloba, is that I
am a professional where teeth are
concerned. I am used to seeing
teeth in all sorts of shape.”

“You won’t snicker?”

“Never,” said Jeff, firinly. Aloha
stirred. There was a rattling and
a tearing of creepers as he faced
about. Jeff blinked. This end of
him was almost identical with the
other. The faint glimmer of two
large brown eyes peeked through
the tangle of white curls and a
couple cif elephantine tusks pro-
truded. One of these was shattered
and broken off near its base.

“Oh, the ugliness of it,” moaned
Aloba, faindy, closing his eyes.

“Hmm,” said Jeff, stepping up to
the Asona’s great woolly head.
“Will you get down a litde lower,
please?” Aloba knelt clumsily,
bringing his head down to about
the level of Jeff’s chest. Jeff probed
around the fur, found an upper
lip. “Raise your lip, please.” Some-
what to his surprise, Aloba did.
Jeff palpated the root area. “Does
that hurt? How did this happen?”

“Hurt?” said Aloba, in a some-
what surprised tone. “Oh, yes. But
I’m not paying any attention to
that, you know. It’s the looks.”

“And how did it happen?”

“I fell off a small cliff,” said
Aloba, in a bashful voice. “I was
speculating, you see, on the future
of humanity, and how it would
effect us if we took any one of

65

five paths of relationships. Grad-
uated cooperation—”

“And you landed on this tusk?”

“Well, it got caught between a
couple of boulders as I rolled down
the cliff, and snapped off. The
shock was extreme. Ruined, I
thought to myself, ruined! I could
never face another Asona again
with this humiliating disfigure-
ment; and what would I be with-
out personal contact with my kind ?
A withered, useless branch of the
race.”

“Aloba has the third best mind
on the planet,” said Jjarja, proudly.

“Well, no, actually I’m tied for
third place,” said Aloba, faintly,
closing his eyes again. “Oh, well,
maybe it’s better that way— I can
more easily be spared. The table
of ratings will not even have to be
adjusted.”

“Now don’t talk that way!”
scolded Jjarja.

“We might as well face facts,”
groaned Aloba. “Metake will have
third place all to himself. He will
probably throw the weight of his
arguments on the conservative side.
That means the end of you humans
on our planet here. Doctor, inci-
dentally. But what can one do?
Que sera, sera.”

“I beg your pardon?” asked Jeff,
startied.

“Oh, that’s Spanish,” said Aloba.
“I guess you don’t speak it as well
as I do. It means in English: what
will be, will be, I am irretrievably
ruined.”

66

“Nonsense,” said Jeff. Aloba’s
eyelids flew open almost literally
with a bang.

**How dare you!*' he trumpeted,
surging to his feet. “What? You
have the audacity—”

“He didn’t mean it that way!”
cried Jjarja.

“Nonsense? To me— a tied third 1
And by a human! I never heard
anything so—”

“I meant every syllable of it,”
said Jeff, firmly. “I can’t replace
your tusk, but I can provide you
with a substitute no one will be
able to tell from the original, with-
out professional experience.”

“Skebash!” gasped Aloba.

“No, really,” said Jjarja. “He
really can.”

“!” said Aloba.

“I will stake,” said Jeff, somewhat
carried away, “my professional
reputation on it.”

“I still don’t believe it,” said
Aloba. “Nothing will make me be-
lieve it. I have too much common
sense . . . really, doctor? You mean
you can actually • . . How?”

Jeff explained that he would
have to send for a few things. He
unhooked his belt phone and pro-
ceeded to do so. Back at the ship,
Hokerman mournfully informed
him from the dental clinic that
everything he wanted would be
sent out early the following morn-
ing.

It was too late to do anything
that evening. Jeff retired to his

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

hammock and dropped off to sleep
early. His last waking memory was
of Aloba and Jjarja sitting before
a comfortable fire and discussing
something or other in their own
rather complicated tongue. It was
one of those perfect nights of sleep
when he seemed merely to blink
his eyes once and then he was
awake again and it was morning,
with both him and the morning
bright-eyed and promising.

About nine o’clock the runabout
made its delivery, having homed in
on the signal of Jeff’s phone. It let
down the materials and equipment
he needed, by cable. It could just
as easily have landed, but Aloba
threatened to go into another tizzy
at the thought of exposing his
damaged countenance to any more
eyes than had already seen it. Jeff
got to work.

On Aloba’s assurance that both
tusks had been, for all practical and
cosmetical purposes, identical, Jeff
made a cast of the one good tusk
remaining in the Asona counten-
ance, and cast up an acrylic false
tusk over a metallic core, arranged
to give the false tusk weight and
balance. Assured by Aloba that this
imitation was a close twin of the
original real thing, he proceeded
with the operation.

There was some small argument
about the anesthetic. Aloba wanted
to induce his own anesthesia ac-
cording to the custom of his race—
that is, by autohypnosis. Jeff did not

A MATTER OF TECHNIQUE

67

trust autohypnosis. Aloba did not
trust JefFs lyrocaine. It was finally,
and very sensibly, decided to use
both. Aloba lay down on his side,
crossed his eyes for a moment, and
announced himself ready. Jeff
moved up to the area of the Asona’s
head with a hypodermic syringe
and infiltrated the root area with
one hundred c.c. of the lyrocaine.
Supporting the tusk stub tempor-
arily with a bracket he had de-
signed the night before, he made
his incision into the upper jaw, laid
a flap and lifted out the remaining
bit of tusk and root quite easily.

He had already prepared a me-
tallic base. This he anchored to the
bone of the upper jaw with vital-
hum screws which he had been
assured by Aloba were most likely
to be tolerated by the Asona body
chemistry. He had already packed
the cavity left by the extraction of
the tooth root. He sutured the in-
cisions he had made and it was all
over.

“Hum,” said Aloba, when in-
formed of this fact. He got to his
feet and went over to a large mir-
ror Jeff had ordered out and hung
from a nearby tree. The Asona
looked at himself.

“I look lopsided,” he said.

“Here,” said Jeff, He came up
with the false tusk. “Now this will
go onto the new base. Only we’ll
have to wait—”

“No,” said Aloba.

“We can’t put that much strain
on that area so soon—”

“I want to see what it looks
like.”

“No.”

“Yes,” said Aloba.

After a rather spirited argument,
Aloba won his point. Jeff lifted the
false tusk; and, while Aloba held
his head rock-steady, he screwed
the threaded inner socket in the
tusk’s end onto the threaded bolt
within the new base.

“Now there,” said Jeff, support-
ing the tusk, as Aloba looked at
himself in the mirror.

“It’s twisted off to one side,” re-
plied Aloba.

“I didn’t screw it as tight as you
will later,” said Jeff. “Besides,
there will be minor adjustments to
make. Naturally. However—”

“All right,” said Aloba. “Take it
out.” Jeff unscrewed the tusk, and
laid it aside. Aloba let out a whisd-
ing sigh of relief.

“Now, there you are Doctor,” he
said. “While you have done nothing
/ could not have done— given, that
is, the time, the materials, the ex-
perience, ct al— the fact remains, I
would not have done it. I would
no doubt have gone into seclusion,
followed by a nervous breakdown,
rapid decline of mental powers,
and eventual collapse and death.
One of the qualities of the Asona
is to recognize our own limitations;
and Doctor, like all the others, I
am a veritable bundle of neuroses.”

“Well, now—” began Jeff.

“Please! No contradictions, polite
or otherwise. I know whereof I

68

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

speak. Back to the matter at hand
—you have performed a noteworthy
action, performed a valuable serv-
ice. A certain portion of the reward
appertaining will, of course, be my
voice in the Asona arguments in
the favor of liberalism and human-
ity. More than that, however, I am
willing now to engage in some face-
to-face talks with your Captain, or
other authorities of your race. I be-
lieve we can be of use to each
other.”

"Well ...”

"You will be surprised at what
we Asona have to offer. And now—
about this little problem of yours.”

“Problem?"' stuttered Jeff.

"Certainly, It is a very Asona-
like one; and one for which we
Asona have long known a solution.
You humans provide yourselves
with any number of mechanical
gadgets. We Asona, being more
perceptive and capable, have merely
provided ourselves with a single,
all-purpose device in a member of
Jjarja’s race apiece. We are each
assigned one of them at birth, and
it would amaze you to know what
unlimited usefulness they possess.
Jjarja, of course, is mine; and in
reward for .what you have done
for me, what I have to suggest is
this; . .

Pat Dirksen sighed. It was a very
heartfelt, satisfied sigh. She relaxed
in Jeff’s arms, gazing out through
the copter windows at the familiar,
friendly stars of the night sky as

seen from midwestern North Amer-
ica, Earth, during the summer
months.

. . What happened?” she mur-
mured, a little dazedly.

"I happened,” said Jeff.

"No, I mean to make you so
different.”

"Oh, well,” said Jeff. "Space
travel— foreign associations. In a
word, experience.”

"But I still don’t understand
cither how you got back so quick.
You told me how you signed up
and about this Asina— ”

"Asona.”

"Asona,” Pat corrected herself.
"But I still don’t see—”

"That was part of the reward.
He arranged for me to be let out
of the Service again. Since the en-
listment officer had played safe by
giving me only a temporary ap-
pointment, it wasn’t hard.”

"Part of the reward?” said Pat.
"What was the other part?”

"Nothing important.”

"But I want to know.”

"Well,” said Jeff, "I don’t know
if I can describe it to you. He gave
me something of his that was rather
valuable. Naturally, I couldn’t keep
it, I hung on to it for a couple of
weeks and then gave it back.”

"But what was it?” said Pat.

"Oh, just a native gadget.”

"A native gadget?”

"A native gadget.”

"Why,” demanded Pat, "do you
smack your lips when you say
that?”

Joan Vatsek is a Hungarian who was bom in America and educated in
Canada in order to be a teacher in Egypt, As a result of all this, she
speaks with a faint accent which Americans consider Hungarian and
Hungarians consider American, Her first writing was for Whit Burnetfs
well-remembered and never-quite-replaced magazine^ Story; and her
stories have appeared in nearly every major slick— sometimes as a result
of collaboration with her husband Robert Arthur, who last month
recounted here the impossible dilemma of Obstinate Uncle Otis. Mr.
Arthur^s fantasies are frequently humorous; Miss Vatsek makes her
debut in this field with a serious ghost story, at once in the grand old
manner of romantic atmosphere and in the newer psychological manner
which insists that only some need within the haunted can evoke a haunt.

The Duel

by JOAN VATSEK

When J.\nine stopped talking,
sometimes as now she seemed to
stop breathing also, as if to listen*
The silence came in through the
walls of the old Virginia house and
pressed itself between them.

“Are you sure this place isn’t too
lonely for you?” Laurence asked
again.

“I’m all right, really I am,” Ja-
nine said with a fleeting smile.
“Stop worrying. Everything’s fine.
Besides,” she added reasonably, “we
had to come here. There wasn’t
anyplace else to go, was there, now
that we’ve spent all our money on
me? I mean was there, darling?”

“No,” Laurence agreed after a

brief pause. “But I’d forgotten
how isolated it was. If you think —

“It’s fine. It’s a wonderful old
house. Perhaps I’ll even try my
painting again.”

She turned to gaze through the
window, her slender arms resting
on the sill. It was a high window,
and round, like a porthole. From it
there was nothing to be seen but
woods, stretching away unbroken
up the hills to the west.

After a while, her mouth con-
stricted, she turned brighdy to-
ward him again.

“You’ll have lots of ideas here,”
she said. “And I’ll try to let you
alone when you’re writing. Really,”

70

She came gracefully toward the
kitchen table where he was sitting,
resting. While he went on with the
unpacking, she managed supper.
It came out of cans, but she served
the food on fine china set on white
damask cloth. She had unpacked
and washed the china first of all,
while Laurence got sheets and
blankets out and made their bed
and set the kitchen in working
order.

They were surrounded by un-
packed boxes in the dining room,
but the good dishes were all aglow
with pastel color and gold, and
Janine glanced at them from time
to time, satisfied.

She brought with her always this
touch of luxury. It was a part of
her being, a part of the aura that
made her a unique and lovely
woman.

Her gaze drifted around the
room, uncarpeted and bare, and
hesitantly to the rooms beyond, in
which their apartment furniture
would leave echoing spaces.

She avoided looking at the win-
dows now that the blue dusk was
sifting down into the solitary val-
ley.

The house was all that remained
of an old Virginia estate. It had
been left to Laurence by his father,
who had gone bankrupt in gentle-
manly fashion a generation earlier,
raising thoroughbred horses. The
acres that surrounded the house
had been long since sold. The house
and the grounds around it were un-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

salable; it was too remote. So now,
after being away from it since his
boyhood, he had returned.

Half hidden in the long grass
behind the house one could still
find the remains of stables and
slave quarters — tumbled foundation
stones and unexpected pits.

A stream ran through the far
part of the field, which could be
crossed on a homemade plank
bridge, and on the other side of the
stream was an old burying ground
with stones half sunk in the earth
and hidden by weeds and grass. Be-
yond the forgotten headstones a
tangle of woods had taken over.

In the evening silence they could
hear the gurgling of the stream
more loudly than when they had
been busy with unpacking.

For an instant Laurence caught
from Janine, from the tilt of her
head and her look of vague dread,
the ominous undertones of the
gurgling water over stones. He
sensed too the eeriness for her of
the mist rising from the stream,
which he had been accustomed to
from childhood as part of a summer
evening.

“Well leave as soon as we have
a little money,” he promised flatly
into the silence and the holding of
her breath.

“Good,” she whispered.

Later in the big bed she lay
shivering beside him.

“Cold.?” he asked. “Come closer.”

“Fm fine,” she denied. “Just
sleepy. Goodnight, Laurence.” .

THE DUEL

71

“Goodnight, my darling.”

She watched the moonlight stalk
with grim shadows across the un-
curtained room and fall across the
counterpane. With a fierce intake
of breath she rolled away from it,
toward her husband, with supersti-
tious dread remembering that
moonlight must not shine upon
one’s bed.

“I can’t sleep,” she whispered
desperately. “Cover the window,
Laurence — cover the window. Keep
the moon out. Please keep the
moon out!”

In an instant he was wide awake
and half across the room. He hung
his robe over the curtain rods and
said in an ordinary voice, “Better,
Janine?”

“Better,” she said, relaxing.
“Much, much better. Thank you,
darling.”

“Can you sleep now? Want your
eau de cologne? Anything?”

“No, dearest,” she said with a
low laugh, now that she was safe
again in the darkness. “Just come
back and let me put my arms
around you, and we’ll both drift
off,”

By the end of the week their be-
longings were all put away, the
furniture arranged, the curtains
hung. Their nearest neighbor was
a farmer a mile away. Laurence
hired one of his sons to cut the
lawn, and his daughter, Trisa, a
girl of seventeen, to come in for
daily straightening and houseclean-

ing. He and Janine drove to town
twice a week to get groceries, and
their mail and milk was delivered.

Everything had settled down to
an orderly routine, and Laurence
began to work again regularly. Ja-
nine kept to her promise. She no
longer sought excuses to interrupt
him; she brought his lunch on a
tray and left it at his door.

Late one afternoon he went
downstairs. It had been raining
steadily all day long; he had scarce-
ly seen Janine. He found her in the
living room sitting cross-legged on
the old Oriental rug before the fire-
place.

It gave him a momentary start to
see her there. How often he’d sat
like that himself as a boy, while
his mother read to him of Robin
Hood and King Arthur’s knights,
and a fire crackled on the hearth.
But there was no fire now, only a
few cold ashes.

Janine did not hear him but re-
mained absorbed in something on
the floor in front of her. In the
strange half-light she looked more
than ever like a Diirer drawing.
She was not beautiful in the ordin-
ary sense of the word: she was
simply arresting and unforgettable.

Puzzled, he became aware of
what preoccupied her. On the floor
she had placed an old inlaid chess-
board that had been in the house
since he could remember. She had
turned it over and on the polished
back had placed a crystal wine
glass, upside down.

72

Two fingertips of her right hand
rested lightly on the base of the
glass. As he watched, the glass
seemed to glide across the board of
its own volition in slow, swooping
arcs, carrying her hand with it.

“What are you doing, Janine?”
he asked.

She Started, screamed, striKk the
glass a sidelong blow and sent it
rolling off the board to the floor.

“No, no!” she cried.

He came into the room carefully,
as if someone were asleep.

“I startled you,” he said. “Forgive
me. I just couldn’t imagine what
you were doing.”

“Oh,” she said, collecting herself,
her breath coming unevenly. She
picked up the glass and put it back.
He saw now that she had care-
fully traced the letters of the alpha-
bet on the back of the chessb^d
in ink.

“Haven’t you ever received mes-
sages this way?” she asked with
pretended carelessness. “Mother and
I used to do it by the hour, when
I was a girl, before she died.”

“Messages from whom?” Laur-
ence asked, careful to keep his tone
casual.

“Oh, from beyond,” Janine told
him, looking surprised that he
needed an explanation. “Mother
and I used to talk to Father this
way, and he brought all sorts of
odd friends. Mother said it was just
like him — when he was alive he
was always bringing home the
strangest people.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“But Janine — ” Laurence began.

“I suppose,” Janine added,
watching him, “you and the doctor
would say it was just Mother’s way
of escaping reality.”

Fleetingly he thought of Janine’s
mother, gallant and pathetic. Gen-
tly brought up, left with nothing
when her husband drowned sailing
on the Charles River, she had
opened a boarding house for stu-
dents. Somehow she had sent Ja-
nine to the best schools, instilUng
in her daughter her own dream of
the day when Janine, with her
beauty and intelligence, would
make a splendid success of some
undefined kind — as a singer per-
haps, or an actress, or a painter.

She had died, worn out but se-
renely satisfied with her handi-
work, shortly before Janine and
Laurence married.

Janine was watching him now
with a hint of challenge in her
smile.

“Try it,” she said. “This is a
wonderful old house. It was built
in 1690 — think of all the people
who have lived and died here since
then. And some of them are still
around. I don’t know why some
stay and some don’t, but it’s always
that way. Try it and see if any of
them will talk to you.”

“All right,” he said, and forced a
smile. He dropped to the rug be-
side her and took her hand. It
slipped away from him, so he
picked up the board and put it in
front of him.

THE DUEL

73

“Just place two fingers on the
glass,” she explained. “Relax and
wait and when the glass moves,
let it take your hand with it.”

He did so, prepared when noth-
ing happened to smile and sug-
gest having an early dinner and see-
ing a movie. But as he waited with
his fingers lightly touching the
crystal, it was as if the unnatural
stillness he had been aware of as
he watched Janine were gathering
again.

The glass began to move. He was
not aware of any conscious mus-
cular effort, but the glass slid in a
smooth arc across the board to the
letter N. It paused, then swept on
to the letter O. From there it went
back even more swiftly to N. To O
once more. To N. To O. Then the
glass with a violent jerk dragged
his hand straight across the board
and off the edge.

*'No, no, no,** Janine read out.
“I guess he doesn’t want to talk to
you, darling.”

With an effort remaining calm,
Laurence took out a cigarette and
lit it.

“Who doesn’t want to talk to me,
Janine?”

“Roderick Jamieson,” she said.
“Major Roderick Jamieson. He
once lived here. I was just talking
to him when you came in. He was
killed during the Revolution, he
told me, at the Battle of Yorktown.
He’s buried in the little burying
ground out back. I’m going to look
for his tombstone tomorrow.”

Laurence caught his breath. He
had left the grass long in the little
cemetery, and hadn’t told Janine
it was there.

But she must have found it and
scraped the moss off the marble
stone that did have the name Rod-
erick Jamieson on it, though no
one in the family had ever known
just who Roderick Jamieson was.

“I see,” Laurence said, feeling a
weight lowering on his shoulders.

“Of course you know, Janine” —
he spoke as carefully as if to a
child — “the glass is moved by your
own unconscious muscular actions.
And any message it might spell out
comes from inside your own mind.”

“Perhaps,” Janine said. “But that
doesn’t make the message any the
less real, darling. Because who puts
it there? Answer me that!”
Abruptly her manner changed.
“Don’t worry, darling. I’ve nothing
to do and Major Jamieson is fun,
that’s all. He’s so boastful of his
exploits. According to him he’s
fought so many duels and made
love to so many women!”

She gave a ripple of excited
laughter.

“No one could believe all his
stories. It drives him into a rage
when I tell him he’s making them
up. Sometimes he flings the glass
across the room.”

To his surprise she leaned into
his arms, against his chest. They
could both feel his heart pounding.

“I love you,” he said tensely,
summoning her back.

74

“I know.” She turned to him and
lifted her face to be kissed. Her lips
were warm and yielding. There
seemed to be no transition neces-
sary for her. She could live in the
real and the unreal world at one
and the same time. He took her in
his arms and held her convulsively,
feeling her closeness for the first
time in months.

“You’ve no idea,” she murmured,
“how furious this makes him.”

He lay awake that night after
Janine had fallen asleep and was
breathing regularly, her breath soft
and warm upon his cheek.

He racked his brains for some-
thing to interest her, to draw her
away from this game with the
board and the glass and the imag-
inary rival. And with anguish he
recalled the happiness of Aeir first
four years together, when he and
Janine had lived in a tiny apart-
ment overlooking Washington
Square, and he had written two
books, both quite successful.

Janine had been so undaunted
and gay about her own career, go-
ing the rounds of the Broadway
theatrical producers’ oflSces, carry-
ing her scrapbook of notices prai^
ing her performances in summer
stock productions . . . then the year
slavishly studying art . . . the short-
lived practical period in an adver-
tising agency writing copy ... the
brief enthusiasm for avant-garde
poetry, and the thin sheaf of verses,
never published . . .

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Then her repudiation of New
York, her longing for the country
and isolation. They had moved to
New Hampshire for her sake, so
that she could really paint. As for
Laurence, he could write anywhere.

In the lovely old colonial house
overlooking the ocean Janine had
produced half a dozen creditable
landscapes. After endless hesitation
she had entered them in a local art
show. When none of them received
even an honorable mention, she
had in unfeigned tedium put away
her paints and canvases.

Then, during the long New Eng-
land winter, had come the first of
those spells of apathy which had
led them to one specialist after
another, in Boston, New York,
Washington . . .

And now, their money gone, they
were here.

Laurence tried to get Janine to
call on people; she refused. They
drove thirty miles to see the movies
twice a week, until she balked and
begged him to go alone.

She assured him she was happy.
As if to prove it, she at last un-
packed her paints and canvases and
began some desultory sketching.
He expected her to abandon them
at any moment, but she did not.
Instead, she became abruptly ab-
sorbed in her painting. She ^gan
work on a canvas which she would
not let him see, which she made
him promise not to look at until it
was finished.

THE DUEL

75

Happy to see her occupied,
though he knew she still used the
board and glass daily, he went
back to work. He determined to
treat her preoccupation with the
messages lightly, until she should
haye enough of it. He even asked
about Roderick Jamieson from
time to time, his manner jesting.

But Janine took no notice of the
jesting, and answered as naturally
as if Roderick Jamieson were real.

One Sunday when Janine was
washing the line china after dinner
— a task she never left to Trisa —
Laurence said casually that he was
going for a stroll, and made directly
for the little bridge and the bury-
ing ground on the other side. He
found the stone, right at the edge
of the cemetery where he remem-
bered it. The long grass beside it
had been trampled. Janine must
have been there. But the moss on
the headstone now made the name
quite illegible. How could she have
known? To satisfy himself, he
scraped off enough moss to verify
the letters j a m i e . . .

Monday he drove the fifteen
miles to town alone for groceries.
“Trisa, stay here until I get back,’"
he told the sloe-eyed, sleepy farm
girl in the kitchen. “If your mistress
wants to send you home, find some
excuse to stay. I’ll pay you double
when I get back.”

In town he stopped at the local
Historical Society, a musty room
where a pleasant, elderly woman
kept the records of the town and

its environs, going back to pre-
Revolutionary days.

After looking around in a happy
fluster, for hardly anyone ever
came, the librarian found a brief
biography cut from some older
record book and pasted into an al-
bum with other yellowed prints.

“Major Roderick Jamieson,” she
said. “I knew I remembered the
name. He came from around here.
A famous duelist, it says here, killed
in action at Yorktown. Decorated
by Lafayette.”

So Roderick Jamieson had been
real enough. But how had Janine
known he was buried behind the
house when the moss on the head-
stone was untouched ? And cer-
tainly she had never visited the His-
torical Society — she had never been
to town alone.

There was only one other pos-
sibility. Among the ancient books
and papers in the attic, Laurence
decided, she must have found some
records that mentioned Roderick
Jamieson. He had never come
across any such reference himself,
but then, it was years since he had
been up there and he had never
rummaged very deeply into the
moldering old newspapers and let-
ters that had gathered dust there
for perhaps two hundred years.

But he put off checking in the
attic, not admitting to himself that
he was afraid he would find no
record of Jamieson there.

“Roderick is growing fantastic-

76

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

ally jealous of you, darling,” Janine
said one afternoon, as she swung
idly in the hammock. Laurence had
brought out some lemonade fla-
vored with mint he had found in
a patch run wild.

“Mmmm,” he said. “Had a letter
from my agent today. He likes the
new book but he wants me to work
on it some more.”

“What a bore.”

“It means we have to stay put
for the moment.”

“Oh, that. I wouldn’t want to
leave.”

“You wouldn’t?” he asked un-
easily.

“No. It’s delightful simply to
have time. I’ve never known any-
thing like this place for time. I
could just drift along forever.”

“Lotus eater,” he smiled, relieved.

She turned to him a look full
of mysterious sorrow. “Yes,” she
said. “I’m not fighting it any more.
I’m an idle and useless woman.”

“Janine, you’re nothing of the
sort.”

“But I am.” She started the ham-
mock swinging by lacing her fin-
gers into the ropework. Her fingers
were strong, bone-strong. The nails
were long and polished. She was
always immaculately groomed. She
spent hours in front of the little
dressing table in the dressing room
he had fitted up for her.

“You should have told me years
ago,” she said half-accusingly.
“Roderick claims a woman doesn’t
need to be useful. At least not a

woman like me. He says her only
duty is to be ornamental.”

“He does, eh?” Laurence was
not the least bit amused. “What
else does he say?” He sought to
understand the new role she was
playing.

“Oh, he talks interminably about
himself, as I told you. He tells me
about his duels and his love affairs.
I accuse him of having the love af-
fairs simply because he had such
a zest for polishing off the hus-
bands. He doesn’t deny it.”

“Did he use sword or pistol?”
Laurence asked, watching her face
closely without seeming to do so.

She hesitated. “He’s a little bit
vague about that — he doesn’t spe-
cify what weapons he used. Once
he went into a tantrum and
wouldn’t speak to me for days,
when I suggested he wasn’t always
a gentleman about these ‘duels.’
When he came out of his miff, he
informed me that he had been fab-
ulous with his pistols, and that he
had killed six men single-handed,
before he was killed in action at
Yorktown. He was only twenty-
seven, and he seems, sometimes,
ever so much younger than that —
much younger than you’ve ever
been, darling.”

“Six men? All husbands?” he
asked dryly. This was a familiar
theme with Janine — only a new
twist. She didn’t really like hus-
bands, or being a wife: essentially
she wanted a state of romantic ten-
sion, indefinitely sustained.

THE DUEL

77

“Three or four were husbands,”
she said carelessly. “But when I
ask him what became of the ladies
afterwards — all presumably free to
marry him — he distracts me by
complimenting me on my eye-
brows, or something equally silly.”

“Why? You have very nice eye-
brows,” Laurence said. “I suppose
he’s in love with you?”

“Oh, madly. He spends a lot of
time brooding over how he can
manage a duel with you. It’s a great
frustration to him not to be able
to fling a glove in your face.”

“He might fling the glass,”
Laurence suggested.

“That’s not bad, darling,” she
said, as though she had not ex-
pected so much wit from him.
“I’ll suggest it. Would you like to
see what he looks like?”

“See what he looks like?” He
was momentarily startled.

She took him by the hand and
led him into the living room. On
an easel by the window was the
canvas she had never let him see.
Now, as she removed the covering
and turned the picture toward him
with the smile of a mischievous
child, he understood.

It was the head and shoulders of
a young man. His blond hair was
long, and it curled down over his
ears and to his collar. His face was
thin and aristocratic, his lips twisted
in a slight smile that might have
been pleasing except for his eyes.

His eyes were an intense blue
that was almost black. They seemed

to catch and hold Laurence’s gaze
as if he were giving some com-
mand. There were depths to the
painted eyes, depths of darkness,
and when Laurence looked into the
eyes, he saw that Janine hadn’t
painted Roderick Jamieson smiling.

It was undoubtedly the best thing
she had ever done.

“It’s superb,” Laurence ex-
claimed. Then, trying to appear un-
concerned, “So this is Major Rod-
erick Jamieson.”

“He says it’s a perfect likeness” —
laughter bubbled on Janine’s lips —
“except that it doesn’t make him
handsome enough. I told him his in-
sufferable vanity begins to bore me.”

“You must try another oil,”
Laurence said, choosing his words.
“This is really very fine.”

“Perhaps I will.” Abruptly she
covered the picture. Her voice was
flat and uninterested. “It was fun.”

That evening after Janine was
asleep,, Laurence wrote at last to
the doctor in Washington who had
treated her;

Janine's neurosis in this lonely
place has fallen a new turn. She
spends her time dreaming. She has
imaginary conversations through a
homemade ouija board. She seems
to be going gently

His pen tore through the sheet
of paper, penetrating to the green
blotter beneath. He burned the let-
ter over the kitchen stove.

"Roderick says I should leave

78

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

you,” Janine said at breakfast,
yawning and smiling at him. “He
claims you don’t understand me.
He says you don’t believe a word of
what I tell you about him, and that
you think I am going mad. Do
you?”

Laurence concentrated on stirring
his coffee, not trusting the expres-
sion of his eyes. His hands trem-
bled. Had Janine watched him
struggling with the letter, seen him
burn it, guessed its contents?

“He does, eh? What else does
he say?”

“Oh, never mind him, he’s al-
ways making up things,” she
shrugged. She got up and kissed
him. The rest of the day she put
herself out to be sparkling, gay,
witty — and she refused to be drawn
back to Roderick Jamieson.

That night Laurence woke and
found she had stolen downstairs*
He got out of bed and crept down
the stairs to the living room, where
he paused in the doorway, drawn
back and hidden by darkness.

Janine had lit a fire with a bit of
paper and some kindling wood.
This was the only light in the
room. She was laughing and talk-
ing to herself, and the glass lay
idle by the board.

He could make out no word of
what she was saying, for she was
speaking in a voice so low it
sounded almost like someone else
talking. The faint murmur could
even have been the wind. But he
could see her lips moving and her

eyes shining with an animation
she had not displayed for a long,
long time. Unlike her pretense of
gaiety all day, this was genuine.

She was dressed in a diaphanous
nightgown and matching loose
robe. It had big sleeves tight at
the wrist, and it was closed at the
throat with a blue ribbon. Once
she caught at her throat with a
look of confusion, as if someone
there beside her had reached up
to unfasten it.

Then she said something teas-
ingly, shaking her head from one
side to the other in negation.

Laurence had a premonition that
she was about to rise and turn, so
he went stealthily to bed, his heart
throbbing and his head aching in-
tolerably.

Janine came drifting back a few
moments later, all her languor re-
turned. As she lay beside him he
could feel her exhaustion.

Whatever it had been, it hadn’t
been play-acting. It had taken a
lot out of her.

In her sleep, later, she spoke.
“Run I Run! Run!” she whispered.
Then she gave a little moan and
her head fell sideways on the pil-
low.

Laurence wrote the doctor the
next morning, telling him the
whole story, and not trusting the
letter to Trisa, mailed it himself.

The doctor wrote to bring Janine
at once for further treatment. He
reminded Laurence sternly that he

THE DUEL

79

had been unwilling to let Janine go:
he had not considered her cured.
Laurence had asked desperately for
advice; the doctor gave none. He
said simply to come to Washington
at once.

Laurence spent an hour staring
at his bank brok. He did not need
to open it to read the figures.

He looked out the window at
Janine. Around the house was a
smooth carpet of lawn, but she pre-
ferred always to walk in the long
grass, rustlingly, on the other side
of the stream. Sometimes she van-
ished for hours in the woods. Did
she meet Roderick Jamieson there?

He started, his fists clenched.
Was her nonsense infecting him
too? Yet it was true that she acted
as though she had a lover.

He had never seen her so lovely.
An inner wholeness seemed to
possess her whole being. She was
no longer torn apart as before by
self-questionings, self-accusations,
and abortive ambitions that were
soon dispelled and left her limp and
defeated.

She walked proudly now, almost
with arrogance, and there were
none of the nervous gestures and
starts and stops that had marked
her earlier illness.

He got out the doctor’s letter to
answer it, put it away again hope-
lessly, and began working, shutting
out from his mind the seductive
Virginia summer, the blue hot sky,
the scent of honeysuckle, and his
wife in its tangles, walking.

He worked all afternoon and sat
down exhausted to the supper that
Janine served by candlelight on
fragile china, dreamily.

With a start Laurence noticed
that she was drinking from the
crystal glass she used for the ouija
board, and that her hand was
clasped around its stem almost con-
stantly. She hardly ate, but drank
lingeringly, her lips moving ten-
derly against the edge of the glass.

The wine, on top of a day of
concentrated effort, made Laurence
sleepy. He watched Janine through
half-closed eyes.

She served brandied peaches in
rose-crystal bowls, her every ges-
ture fastidious and serene, as
though she served a lover: but he
knew that he was not the one she
was thinking of.

As they went to bed, rain began
to fall with a metallic patter on
the copper roof gutters, and a soft
whispering on the windowpanes.
Thunder grumbled in the sky and
lightning flashed, coming closer.

Janine fell asleep quickly and
peacefully, but he was too weary.
Sleep would not come. He turned
and tossed, he lit cigarettes and put
them out. He lay and stared into
darkness illuminated at intervals
by the reflected glare of lightning,
and heard the storm draw nearer.

The shutter began to bang as
the wind rose. Irritated, he got up
to fasten it As he reshut the win-
dow and turned back he saw Ja-
nine standing, facing him.

80

He did not move or speak, frozen
by her expression. She seemed to
be looking directly at him with
malevolent hatred.

After an electric moment she
turned and went downstairs in the
dark. He looked about for a flash-
light, found none, and afraid to
wait, gropingly followed her.

She did not turn even when he
stepped upon the two creaking
stairs, one after the other, hard.
Then he was sure she was walking
in her sleep.

The front door was open. He fol-
lowed her out, shivering in the
slashing rain. Ahead of him, Janine
seemed to feel nothing. Her hair
and her diaphanous gown blew
back in the wind as the fitful light-
ning revealed her.

Laurence thought of the pits and
foundation stones left of the old
slave quarters and stables, toward
which she was going. However
great the shock, he must wake her.

“Janine!” he cried, his voice
blending with the keening wind.
“Janine!”

She heard her name, stopped in
mid-flight, and must have made out
the motion of his hurrying form,
just as he could see only the erratic-
ally elusive white gown.

“Wait!” he called imperatively.

“You’re slow, Roderick!” she
called back. Then she gave a ripple
of excited laughter and triumph.
“Catch me!” she cried, coquetry in
her voice. Starting away from him,
she began to run. “Run, run, run!”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

she called. He remembered the
compulsive words of her dream.

He ran. But she fled before him
lightly, skirting the dangerous pits
with amazing surefooted speed.
She cut across the fields and Laur-
ence followed, already sure of her
destination. She raced across the
little bridge, perhaps remembering
vaguely some tale that spirits could
not cross a stream.

Safe on the other side, she
laughed exultantly. There was now
nothing between her and the
tangled woods, in which she might
hide from him all night. He was
soaked to the bone, and so must
she be. She would catch pneu-
monia.

“Janine!” he called desperately.
“Wait for me!”

“Too slow, too slow!” she called
back. But she paused an instant.
Lightning flared across the sky. In
the brilliant white light he saw
Janine looking toward him, her
lips parted, her eyes wide with what
seemed like dawning recognition,
her hair and her thin gown plas-
tered to her by the rain.

Laurence took the planks in
three flying strides. He must get to
her before she started off again. He
must — he stretched his arm toward
her, and then it seemed as if a
vicious hand had treacherously
seized his ankle. He felt himself
flying through the air as if lifted
bodily, and as he plunged forward
he could see the marble slab sunken
and tilted in the long grass. By the

THE DUEL

81

flare of lightning he could even see
the letters from which he had
scraped away the moss:

JAMIE...

Then his forehead came down
full force on the edge of the marble.

When Trisa, the hired girl, came
the next morning, she found Janine
crouched on the living room floor
in her still damp nightgown, croon-
ing to Laurence, whose body she
had somehow dragged into the
house and whose bloody head was

cradled in her lap. In the cold fire-
place was a half-burnt chessboard,
and the pieces of a broken glass
were on the hearth.

Janine looked up slowly as Trisa
entered.

“He didn’t love me,” she said, in
a voice so hoarse Trisa could hardly
understand her. “He never cared
at all for me. He never cared for
any woman. He just wanted to kill.
To killl”

It was the last coherent sentence
she ever spoke.

Watch for the May issue of

F&SFs exciting s f sister magazine features, in May:

THEODORE STURGEON— with a powerful novelet, “The Comedian's
Children." When Heri Ganza^ the world’s funniest man, set out to lick iapetitis,
the whole world rooted for him. Except for a few diehards, that is, who had
their own ideas about what was causing the frightening children’s disease . . .

ISAAC ASIMOV— with a hilarious puzzler, “Buy Jupiter!" The price the
aliens were willing to pay for Jupiter was more than fair. But why did they
want it in the first place?

ROG PHILLIPS— with a moving short novelet, “Ground Leave Incident."
To a young country couple on an isolated planet, a spaceship visit is a welcome
event . . . They tried not to notice the eyes of the woman-hungry crew . , ,

ARTHUR C CLARKE— with an entertaining tale about a “Cosmic Casanova."
Two months out on a solo galaxy scouting trip, a man can get pretty lonely.
So the lovely alien Liala was—almost--all a man could ask for .. .

Also, permanent features: Isaac Asimov's informative column on science-in-
the news, Theodore Sturgeon's lively discussion of s f doings in the world of
books. And many more exciting stories.

The Science Stage

The infernal machine, which
will have finished going off at the
Phoenix by the time you read this,
is more indebted to fantasy and
science fiction than the average
playgoer might suppose. Its first
obligation, of course, is to the
actors, who manage to keep the
proceedings interesting for a good
part of the evening; to the scene
designer, who has devised generally
effective settings on a low budget;
and to the Phoenix Theatre itself,
which has given the play an oppor-
tunity to be seen and heard in New
York. And it owes a great deal to
Sophocles, who told the story of
Oedipus more than two thousand
years before the French got around
to it. It is by now fairly common
knowledge that the wretched pro-
tagonist of this tragedy, in fulfil-
ment of a prophecy made before
he was born, killed his father, mar-
ried his mother, and lived to suffer
the tortures of the damned. To this
ancient classic tale Jean Cocteau
has added several modern improve-
ments which we might have done
without.

Cocteau has apparently read
widely in modern magazines deal-
ing with fantasy and has perhaps
unconsciously adapted what he
read to his own purposes. There is
for example a scene in which the

ghost of the slain King Laius tries
to “get through” to his widow and
a group of soldiers and manages at
most to be faintly heard. There is
a scene where the Sphinx and the
Egyptian god of the dead, Anubis,
discuss the Sphinx’s job here on
earth, and Anubis comments that
the Sphinx’s assumption of the ap-
pearance of a young girl is making
her feel and . think hke one. You
might think that Anubis and the
Sphinx were aliens from Planet
X152, Galactic System 4189 ZA.
There is, for still another example,
the scene where Oedipus reads in
the eyes of Teiresias some of his
own future. All these would have
sounded strange to Sophocles. They
sounded comfortingly familiar to
me.

If Cocteau had limited himself
to such modern ingredients as
these he might still have had a
good play. Unfortunately, in his ef-
fort to achieve a light touch, he has
added several shallow cliches of
modern literature and playwriting.
Jocasta is at one moment a silly old
woman lecherously eying every
young man, the next moment a
mother heartbroken by the loss of
her son in infancy, and only rarely
a suffering queen. Teiresias vacil-
lates between being a stupid and
stuffy old man and a prophet-priest

82

THE SCIENCE STAGE

83

in direct communication with the
gods. Other characters show sim-
ilar inconsistencies in mood and be-
havior. Oedipus, instead of being a
young man doomed by Nemesis, is
for a good part of the play a boring
neurotic who suspects every one for
the most trifling cause and rages
for no good reason. In the bedroom
scene with Jocasta he tackles
Freud and succeeds in reducing that
gentleman to absurdity. Cocteau
should have made him a woman
and put him into an adaptation of
a play by Tennessee Williams, not
Sophocles.

To add to the general unhappi-
ness, there are numerous individual
lines outstanding for their silliness.
After Jocasta has learned of her re-
lationship to her young husband
and hanged herself, Oedipus steps
on stage to announce that “She was
romantic.” Then his daughter, An-
tigone, an adolescent and not a
child of four, appears to say in
childish accents, “Mother doesn’t
move.” I don’t know whether M.
Cocteau, who is I understand an
immortal of the French Academy,
is responsible for these master
strokes or whether the credit be-
longs to his adapter. May God have
mercy on the guilty man’s soul.

To my mind June Havoc was
too young-looking and attractive to
be a properly middle-aged queen,
but did manage to lend interest to

the part. Earle Hyman was fine
as the ghost of Laius and Philip
Bourneuf as Teiresias, the High
Priest. Joan McCracken, as the
Sphinx, gracefully managed a kit-
tenish role and spouted some pur-
ple prose without blushing. Jacob
Ben-Ami, costumed in an incred-
ible collection of rags, was effective
in his two minutes on stage. John
Kerr, as Oedipus, was more peevish
than tragic. But the script, which
in the first act portrayed him as a
young man in a gray flannel toga,
was largely responsible. Even
Claude Dauphin looked foolish in
a pretentious filmed prelude and
interlude which added nothing to
the entertainment or artistic values
of the evening.

We can still be grateful to the
Phoenix for presenting us with this
sample of modern drama in an
experimental mood. As every
young man should know in this
scientific age, even an experiment
with a negative result can be use-
ful.

THE INFERNAL MACHINE, by Jean

Cocteau in a new adaptation by
Albert Bertnel, presented by the
Phoenix Theatre, directed by Her^
bert Berghof, scenery by Ming Cho
Lee, costumes by Alvin Colt, light-
ing by Tharon Musser, starring
June Havoc and John Kerr.

WILLIAM MORRISON

'k

Since Sputnik ?noved us into the Space Age, many new readers have
turned to science fiction to see what further technical marvels s.f. is
prophesying for the immediate future. Here Mr. Stanton obligingly
offers a survey of those wonders that await you on the domestic level.
Are you feeling strong?

Over The River To

Whats-Her-Name's House

by WILL STANTON

Garth was tired when he got
home from the office. “Mag?” he
called. It was the afternoon for his
wife’s appointment with the Budget
Counselor, but she might have got-
ten home early. “Mag?” There was
no answer. Oh rats, he thought.

Then he tried to. think of three
beautiful things to combat the irri-
tant thought. I am rich, rich, rich,
he thought, wealthy in material pos-
sessions and in culture and in
things of the spirit. He poured a
bowl of marbles on the floor and
took off his sandals. Then he sat
in the contour-lax chair and picked
up the marbles with his toes— first
the left and then the right and then
the left and dropped them in the
bowl. He could fed the tension
steal away— steal away home.

The fireside symphonium, acti-
vated by the movement of the chair.

had commenced playing his favor-
ite airs, and the vox humana was
delivering calm yet inspirational ut-
terances. He dropped the last
marble in the bowl and brushed his
toes together reflectively. A drink
would taste good.

He crossed the hobby area to the
recreation area, and opened the con-
cealed door to the alcove which
housed the portable bar. He selected
a glass from the safety holder and
engaged the lemon peeler, but
when he came to look for the mud-
dler there was nothing in the mud-
dler rack but a nyliform sheath. It
was the case for the shears for dis-
jointing frozen fowl. He checked
the bar guest book to sec if anyone
had jotted down an explanation.
There was none. Not one lousy
word.

Garth took a deep breath and ex-

84

OVER THE RIVER TO WHAT’s-HER-NAMe’s HOUSE

85

haled slowly, stretching his arms
above his head. There was nothing
better for toning up the system and
inducing calmness. Spring showers,
he thought, summer flowers, falling
leaves. He stepped to the mail
hamper and pressed the audio unit.

“Hello there from the Trivet of
the Month Club,” said the voice.
“Now stop worrying. Just because
you forgot to send in your dues
doesn’t mean you’re going to miss
out on this month’s surprise trivet.”

“Oh brother,” said Garth, “that’s
hitting too close to home.” He had
forgotten to send in his dues. Of
course the Offer of the Month Club
Digest and Consumers* Report had
given Trivet only a 5 A rating
which wasn’t much.

“We’ll be seeing you,” the voice
was saying, “at the Triveteers’ An-
nual Outdoor Brunch and Jam-
boree. Send in your reservations
and while you’re at it, include your
news notes for the correspondents*
page of Triveteria. We thought the
boys did a bang-up job on the first
issue. . . .” Garth flipped the switch.
Many of his trivets were still
stacked in the storage area. That
was the heck of it.

He had been on the point of in-
stalling some new trivet shelves
when this bonus book had come in
from some place— all about how to
build a cabinet to hold covers for
lawn furniture. And then Mag had
been elected regional secretary of
the Furniture for Unesco League,
and the lawn furniture had gone

into that, and when he got around
to looking for the muddler all he
could find was the book and noth-
ing was the way he planned it or
where it ought to be. Things of
beauty, he thought, joys forever.
The glories that were Greece.

He was checking the rest of the
mail when Mag came home. “Sorry
I’m late,” she said, “I had a long
talk with Fike at the Spiritual
Guidance Office.”

“You were supposed to have an
appointment with the Budget
Counselor,” he said.

“There was a conflict in his
schedule.” She took off her gloves.
“Any special mail?”

“There was some,” he said, “what
do you mean, a conflict?”

“He had it,” she said, “that’s all.”
She looked across the hobby area
to the bar alcove. “I guess I left the
alcove door open.”

“I left it open,” he said. “When
I started to fix a drink. I looked for
the muddler and all I could find in
the rack was the cover to the shears
for that book, you know — about the
lawn furniture?”

“I always try to keep the door
closed,” Mag said, “I think it im-
proves the appearance of the room.
But it certainly isn’t important.
Surely not worth arguing over.”

Garth closed his eyes and rubbed
his hands across his head. This ac-
tion rested the eyes and stimulated
the scalp and he tried to remember
to do it several times a day. Once
an hour would not have been too

86

often. “How come you didn’t see
the Budget Counselor.^”

“I was just saying there was a
conflict in his schedule. He had an
appointment this afternoon with
his Domestic Relations Advisor.”

“There was a board set up to
eliminate these conflicts,” Garth
said. “If it isn’t functioning
properly—”

“It’s functioning,” she said, “but
according to the Civic Efficiency
Authority a certain amount of con-
flict is considered healthful and
beneficial. About fourteen percent.”

“I see, fourteen percent,” he
nodded. “That sounds about right
—fourteen or fifteen— somewhere in
there. Did I tell you there was some
mail.'^ An invitation to a cocktail
party to discuss plans for the Beau-
tify the Homes of the Community
Kickoff Luncheon Drive ? Or
maybe it was the other way
around.”

“You’re tired,” she said. “What
you need is a good old-fashioned
sing.” She reached in the piano-
matic and dialed the selections.
“These are all your favorites.” They
sang “Bringing in the Sheaves” and
“Over the Rainbow” and “Old Mac-
donald.” Anyhow Garth did. Mag
could never remember the words
to “Old Macdonald.” So while
Garth sang, she kept time with her
foot and murmured some of the
phrases after him. “A moo-moo
here and a cluck cluck there,” she
said, “I don’t see how you keep
them all straight. Here a quack.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

there a cluck, everywhere an oink
oink— and it’s so good for you, mak-
ing animal sounds from time to
time. . . .” She was nodding her
head in rhythm. “A group of pro-
fessors at Yale discovered that. A
baa baa here, and a cluck cluck
there — can’t you feel the tension
drain away.?”

“I missed a part in the middle,”
Garth said. “I don’t know how it
happened.”

“You sang splendidly— just
grand.”

“It was crummy,” he said. He got
out of his chair and turned around
and kicked it. “It seems like there
ought to be more to life than stuff
like that.”

“That’s just what Fike said,
down at Spiritual Guidance. He
feels we should join another re-
ligion. Now just a second— don’t
explode.”

Garth walked around the chair
and sat down again. “E-I-E-I-O,” he
said. “That’s the only place where
I’m on firm ground.”

Mag leaned forward. “Now,
don’t explode— I know you’ll say
we can’t afford another religion,
but what Fike wanted to know-
can we afford not to join another
religion?”

“I thought Fike had another
appointment.”

“That was the Budget Counselor.
Fike says the study of religion is
in its infancy—”

“More than likely.” Garth was
rubbing his head and exhaling.

87

OVER THE RIVER TO WHAt’s-HER-NAMe’s HOUSE

“What I’ve been trying to think of
just now, is the name of a sick
friend.”

“Maybe I can help,” Mag
wrinkled her face into a thoughtful
look. “Would you say he was tall
or fat? Has he been ill long?”

“I don’t know that he’s ever been
ill,” Garth said. “It’s the present you
gave me, don’t you see? For Clara
Barton Day? A Sick Friend of the
Month Club Gift Certificate. So if
we don’t want the subscription to
lapse... It doesn’t have to be one
of my sick friends, of course, one
of yours would do—”

“You silly,” Mag said fondly,
“that’s all taken care of. They’ll
provide a sick friend if you don’t
have one.”

“No point in changing the sub-
ject,” he said. “The purpose of life
is to have your sick friends get well
and not go rummaging around
looking for new people that are sick
just because you don’t know them

Mag smiled and patted his hand.
“Three good thoughts now . . .”

Yes, he thought, for God, for
country, and for Yale. “There are
institutions provided for these
people.”

“It would be nice if we had some
popcorn, don’t you think?” Mag
reached into the audio unit and
took out the mail.

“If a friend is sick,” Garth said,
“well and good. But if you think
it’s going to end there — Do you
want the frozen redipopt?”

“Let’s pop it ourselves, that’s half
the fun. Here’s a reminder from
the Holiday Death Toll Remem-
brance Committee...”

Garth wheeled out the Hostess-
Helper, set the Chafe-All on top
and plugged in the Pop-Master.
“What kind do you want?” he said.
“There’s bleu-cheeze, old smokey
garlic, ham ’n chive . . .”

“I think just the plain,” she said.

“That’s the most fun of all,” he
said. “I’ll get the Likwid-But-R
from the freezer.”

“I can taste it already. Garth,
here’s another notice from the
Senior Citizens Re-Treat. If we take
advantage of their plan . . .”

“No popcorn in the staples cup-
board,” Garth called. “I’ll try the
snack-shelf.”

“If you retire at forty,” she said,
“we’ll have an expectancy of
seventy fruitful rewarding years.”

“I’ve looked in the emergency
shelf, the Parti-Bin, everywhere,”
Garth said. “There isn’t any pop-
corn. I don’t know what to diink.”

“You’re tired,” she said. “Would
you like to sing some more?”

He sat down dejectedly. “I’ve
tried to be a good provider. That’s
been my goal. Any time I ever
bought popcorn or anchovies or a
nice light wine, it made me feel
capable— able to entertain friends
and all. Now I just feel punk.”

“You mustn’t try to bury these ir-
ritant thoughts,” said Mag. “You
must bring them to the surface and
destroy them.”

88

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“There’s popcorn in this house,”
he said, “that I know.”

“Tomorrow we can rest all day,”
Mag said, “renew old acquaint-
ances, take stock of ourselves.”

“A well run home is like a fine
watch,” he said. “When I took that
course in domestic inventory and
management that’s what everybody
told me. Ha ha.” He laughed bit-
terly. “Some watchmaker. Oh
brother.”

“Three beautiful thoughts,” said
Mag severely. “You think them
now . . .”

“Yes,” he said. Cool cool water.
Bodies of water, lovely bodies. He
couldn’t decide how many thoughts
these were. He thought of the
Statue of Liberty.

“You feel better already,” Mag
said, “I can sense it. You know
what the Journal of Simplified Lip-
ing says—”

“No, I don’t. I don’t know where
it is either. Talk that over with
Fike. See if he knows where the
popcorn is while you’re at it. That’s
the crux of the whole thing. I don’t
know which way to turn in my
own home.” Peace, he thought,
songs of childhood — happy birth-
day. He leaned down and picked
up a marble from the floor.

“I’ve noticed a lot of those around
lately,” Mag said. “I don’t know
where they come from.”

“I usually get them all picked
up,” he said, “with my toes.”

Mag nodded. “I think that’s
fine.”

“It eases the tension,” he said. “I
should have picked up this one too,
but which foot?”

“Pick it up once with each.”

“You’re not going to ease any ten-
sion by begging the question,” Garth
told her. “Thunderation.” He
stared at the marble. A place in the
country, he thought, a cluck cluck
here, a quack quack there. More
than likely it was the left foot. He
sat down and took off his sandal.
He took off the other one too. For
a moment he stared at his toes, then
reached back of him for the bowl
of marbles.

“Well, butterfingers,” Mag said
jokingly, “I’ll help you pick them
up.”

“Stand back,” he said, “you get
your own marbles.” He picked up
one with the left foot and dropped
it in the bowl. Childhood mem-
ories, he thought, a Fourth of July
parade, the band and the marching
units. He dropped another marble
in the bowl. All the organizations
were there, marching along in fine
style with the Civic Efficiency
Authority in front. Their heads
held high, they turned the corner
at River Street and marched out on
the new bridge— the unfinished
bridge that arched the raging flood.
He dropped a marble. Next were
the Triveteers . . .

“I don’t see why you say ‘splash*
every time you drop a marble,”
Mag said.

“Get me a bottle of Sulfa-Cola.”

Mag brought him the bottle.

OVER THE RIVER TO WHAT’s-HER-NAME’s HOUSE

89

“Here you are, you look thirsty.”

“Pour it in the bowl,” he said. He
waited until she had finished.
“That’s fine. What was that group
that your mother — well, never
mind.” He dropped a marble. The
next marching unit was the Past
Vice Presidents of the Assembled
Women’s Clubs and Mag was in
the lead. She strode on proudly,
waving a banner and carrying the
answers to all questions tucked

under her arm. He picked up a
marble.

Mag gazed fondly at her hus-
band. The expression on his face
was happier than she could remem-
ber.

A faint shiver passed over her.
“Garth, did you change the thermo-
trol? It seems cool all of a sudden
—almost clammy.”

Garth held his foot high.
“Splash,” he said.

WETE FOUND
SOMETHING FINE...

Digging in a few forgotten, dusty corners, we’ve come across boxes
containing hundreds of copies of first-line mysteries we published in the
not-too-distant past. And we want to share them with you.

They include Bestseller Mysteries and Jonathan Press Mysteries— reprints
of the best detective and crime novels of recent years— as well as a supply
of Mercury Mystery Book-Magazines, which indude in each issue a top
original mystery book, together with assorted fascinating short articles
and stories on the always fascinating subject of crime.

So that you may share in this wealth (and, we’ll be honest, help us clear
out our storage space) we offer a full 10 assorted copies of these finds
for only $1.00! Original value: $3.50. At this price, we regret that we
cannot fill any special orders— you’ll have to let us do the picking. But
you’d better hurry— this offer is good only until we run out of copies.
Send your dollar to:

FINDS

MERCURY PRESS, INC
527 Madison Ave., N. Y. 22, N. Y.

This issue opened with Robert Sheckley*s glimpse of the near future
of television. Now Brian Aldiss takes a look at the more remote inter-
stellar future of movies — by then solidly three-dimensional. The dis-
illusioned 77ioral of both stories seems to be, '’Plus ^ change . .

Or, in view of the new added dimension: ^^Toda’fs square is t07norrow*s
cube/*

Have Your Hatreds Ready

by BRIAN W. ALDISS

The mighty creature was reeling.
The hunter’s last shot had caught
it right between its eyes. Now, all
fifty graceful tons of it, it reared
up high above the treetops, trum-
peting in agony. For a moment the
sun, beautiful and baleful, caught
it poised like an immense swan,
before it fell — silent now, no more
protesting— headlong into the un-
dergrowth.

**And there lies another triumph
for Man the Unconquerable, Man
the Invincible,*' proclaimed the
commentator. “O/i this planet as
on others, the stupendously hor-
rible natural life finally bows out
before the gigantic little biped from
Barth. Yes sir, every one of these
revolting, unnatural monsters will
be slaughtered by the time —

But by this time, some bright
boy had warned the projectionist
of the new arrival who was now

waiting to use the little editing
theater. The projectionist, in a
panic, cut everything. The 3 D
image vanished, the sound clicked
out with a squawk. Lights came
on, revealing Mr. Emile P. Wreyer-
meyer of Supernova Solids standing
by the door with several of his
more up-and-coming lackeys.

“Hope we didn’t disturb you
boys, Ed?” Mr. Wreyermeyer said,
watching everyone hustling up to
leave.

“Not at all, Mr. Wreyermeyer,
we were just tinkering,” Ed, (a
mere assistant director) said, grab-
bing up his gear. “We’ll wrap this
one up tomorrow. Come on, boys,
move fast!”

“I wouldn’t like to think we’d
interrupted,” Mr. Wreyermeyer
said blandly. “But Harsch Berlin
here has something he seems keen
to show us.” And he nodded, not

90

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

perhaps without an easy menace,
at the lean figure of Harsch Berlin.

Two minutes later, the last hum-
ble shirtsleeved minion had fled
from the theater, leaving the in-
truding party in occupation.

“Ed didn’t seem in any hurry to
leave,” Mr. Wreyermeyer observed
heavily, settling his bulk in one of
the armchair seats. “Well, Harsch,
my boy, let’s see what you have to
show us.”

“Sure thing, Emile,” Harsch said.
He was one of the few men on
the Supernova lot allowed to call
the big chief by his Christian
name; give him his due, he worked
the privilege for all it was worth.
He jumped now, with a parody of
athleticism, onto the narrow stage
in front of the solidscreen and
smiled down at his audience. It
consisted of some twenty-five
people, half of whom Harsch knew
only by first names. This company
broke down roughly into four
groups: the big chief and his yes-
men; Harsch’s own yesmen, headed
by Tony Caley; a handful of boys
from Story and Market Response
Departments with their yesmen;
plus the usual quota of hypnotic-
breasted stenographers.

“Here’s how it is, boys,” Harsch
began, trying to look disarming.
“I’ve got an idea for a solid that has
me knocked sideways, and I’m hop-
ing and expecting it’ll have the
same effect on all of you. Now I’m
not going to try and sell it to you
—we’re all busy men here, and for

91

another thing, it sells itself. It’s a
great idea, at once original and
familiar, at once homely and in-
spiring.

“In brief, the idea’s this: I want
to put over a solid that is going to
give Supernova a terrific boost, be-
cause it’s going to have our studios
as background, and some of our
personnel as extras. At the same
time, it’s going to pack colossal
punch in terms of human drama
and audience appeal. At the same
time, it’s going to be a profile of
New Union, the busiest, biggest,
excitingest, megapolitanist plane-
tary capital in this neck of the
galaxy.”

Harsch paused for effect. Several
members of his audience were
lighting up mescahales, picking
their noses, or talking to each other
in whispers.

“I can see you’re asking your-
selves,” Harsch said, smiling, “just
how I intend to cram so much
meat into one two-hour solid, O. K.
I’ll show you.”

He raised one hand eloquently,
as a signal to his projectionist,
Harry Dander. There was no bet-
ter man than Harry at his job;
even Harsch had been known to
acknowledge that on occasions.
Directly his hand rose, a solid ap-
peared in the screen.

It was the face of a man. He was
in his late forties. The years which
had dried away his flesh had only
succeeded in revealing, under the
fine skin, the nobility of his bone

92

structure: the tall forehead, the set
of the cheekbones, the justness of the
jaw. He was talking, although Har-
ry had turned off the sound, leav-
ing only the animation of the
features to speak for themselves.
This was the kind of man, you felt
instinctively, whose daughter you
would like to marry. His coun-
tenance dwarfed Harsch Berlin.

“This, ladies and gentlemen,*’
Harsch said, clenching his fists
and holding them out before him,
“this is the face of Art Stacker.”

Now he had a reaction. The audi-
ence was sitting up, looking at each
other, looking at Mr. Wreyermeyer,
trying to gauge the climate of opin-
ion about them. Gratified, without
letting the gratification show,
Harsch continued.

“Yes, this is the face of a great
man. Art Stacker! What a man!
He was known only to a narrow
circle of men, here in this very
studio where he worked, yet all
who knew him admired and —
why don’t I come right out with
li}— loved him. I had the honor to
be his right-hand man back in the
good old days when Art was boss of
Documentary Unit Two, and I
plan this solid to be his biography
—a tribute to Art Stacker.”

He paused. If he could swing
this one on Wreyermeyer and Co,
he was made, because if it boosted
Art Stacker it was also going to
boost Harsch Berlin. He had to
play his hand carefully, watching
the big boys in the armchairs.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Art finished up in the gutter!”
someone called out. That was Hi
Pilloi, only a yesman’s yesman.

“Yes, and I am glad someone
brought that point up at once,”
Harsch said, carefully snubbing Hi
Pilloi by not mentioning his name.
“Sure, Art Stacker finished up in
the gutter. He couldn’t quite make
the grade. This solid is going to
show why. It’s going to have
subtlety. It’s going to show just
how much grit and know-how is
needed to serve the public as we
serve them — because, like I said, it’s
going to be a solid not just about
Art Stacker, but about Supernova,
and about New Union, and about
Life. It’s going to have everything.”

The gentle face faded, leaving
Harsch standing there alone. Al-
though he was thin almost to the
point of emaciation, Harsch per-
petually consumed slimming tab-
lets for the luxury of hearing his
underlings refer to him as “gangl-
ing,” which he held to be a term
of affection.

“And the beauty of this solid is,”
he continued dramatically, “that
it’s already half made!”

With Harry sliding smoothly in
on his cue again, images began to
grow in the seemingly limitless
cube of the screen. Something as
intricate and lovely as a magnifica-
tion of a snowflake stirred and
seemed to drift towards the audi-
ence. It enlarged, sprouting detail,
elaborating itself, until every tiny
branch had other branches. It

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

93

seemed, thanks to clever camera
work, to be an organic growth:
then the descending, slowing view-
point at length revealed it to be a
creation of concrete and stone and
ferroline, molded by man into
buildings and thoroughfares.

“This,” Harsch pronounced, “is
the fabulous city — our fabulous city
—of New Union, as filmed by Unit
Two under Art Stacker when he
was at the height of his powers,
twenty years ago. This solid was to
be his great work; it was never
completed, for reasons I will tell
you later. But the sixteen reels of
unedited tape he left behind as his
greatest memorial have lain in our
vaults here all that long time, until
I dug them out just the other day.

“O.K. Now Fm not going to talk
any more for a while. Fm going to
ask you to sit back and appreciate
the sheer beauty of these shots. Fm
going to ask you to try and judge
their undoubted value in terms of
esthetic appeal and box office
punch. Fm going to ask you to
just relax and watch a masterpiece,
in which Fm proud to say I had
such a considerable hand,”

The viewpoint was still sinking
with all the leisure of a drowned
man, below the highest towers,
through the aerial levels, the pedes-
trian (human and non-human)
levels, the various transport and
service levels, down to the ground,
the asphalt ground, embedded in
which a convex glass traflic guide
reflected in miniature the whole of

that long camera descent from the
skies. Then the focus shifted later-
ally, taking in the bright boots of
a police ofiicer.

Meanwhile, almost unnoticed, a
commentary had begun. It was a
typical Unit Two commentary,
quiet, unemphatic, spoken in Art
Stacker’s own voice.

**On the seventy planets which
occupy the insignificant corner of
space inhabited by man, there is no
bigger or more diverse city than
New Union,*' the commentary said.
**lt has become a fable to all men
of all races. To describe it is al-
most impossible without descending
into statistics and figures, and this
is to lose sight of the reality; we
as\ you to come exploring the
reality with us. Forget the facts
and figures: loo\ instead at the
streets and mansions and, above all,
at the individuals which comprise
New Union, Loo\, and asl^^ your-
selves this: how does one find the
heart of a great city?"

New Union had grown over the
ten islands of an archipelago in the
temperate zone of the planet Keir-
son, and spread to the nearby con-
tinent, Five hundred bridges, a
hundred and fifty subways, sixty
heliplane routes and innumerable
ferries, gondolas and sailing craft
interconnected the ten sectors. The
camera swept over Harby Clive
Bridge now, hovering before the
first block beyond the waterway. A
young man was coming out of the
block, springing down the outer

94

steps three at a time. On his face
were mingled excitement, triumph
and joy. He could hardly contain
himself. He could not walk fast
enough. He was buoyed with ex-
altation. He was the young man
you can find in any large city: a
man about to make his mark,
having scored his first success, con-
fident beyond sense, happy beyond
measure. In him you could see the
fuse burning which had reached
out to seventy planets and dreamed
of seventy thousand more.

The commentator did not say
this. The picture said it for him,
catching the young man’s strut, his
angular shadow sharp and restless
on the pavement. But Harsch
Berlin could not stay silent. He
came forward so that his figure bit
its silhouette out of the solid in the
screen.

“That’s the way it was with Art,”
he said. “He was always digging
around for what he called ‘the ex-
act, revealing detail.’ Maybe that’s
why he got no further than he did:
he drove us all crazy hanging
around for that detail.”

“These are just shots of a big
city,” Barnes from Story called up
impatiently. “We’ve all seen this
sort of footage before, Harsch. Just
what does it all add up to?”

Barnes was a nobody trying to
be a somebody; the boys in the
back office spat when they heard
his name.

“If you used your eyes, you’d see
the pattern forming,” Harsch re-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

plied. “That was how it was where
Art was concerned — he just let the
thing evolve, without imposing a
pattern. Watch this coming shot
now for pure comedy....”

Young lovers had come sweeping
up a water lane in a powered float.
They moored, stepped ashore, and
walked arm in arm across a mosaic
walk to the nearest cafe. Back-
ground music changed tempo; the
focus of attention slid from the
lovers to the waiters. Their smooth-
ness of manner at table {''Certain-
ly, madam, I will bring you a
fingerbowl at once') was contrasted
with their indifference when they
were behind scenes, in the squalor
and confusion of the kitchens (“/oe,
some old cow wants a fingerbowl;
where the hell are they}"),

A close-up showed two elderly
waiters passing through the inter-
communicating doors between din-
ing room and kitchen. One was
going into the kitchen, one out.
The one going in uttered with a
wink this cryptic and sinister sen-
tence: "He's eaten it!" A man at
a nearby table, overhearing the
words, dropped his knife and fork
and turned pale.

“Get the idea?” Harsch asked
his audience. “Art is digging down.
He’s peeling off strata after strata
of this, the mightiest city of all
time. Before we’re through, you’re
going to see some of the filth he
found at the bottom.”

Hardly for a moment had he
taken his lynx eyes off Mr. Emile

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

P. Wrcyermeyer, whose dead-pan
countenance was partially hidden
by wreaths of mescahale smoke.
The big chief now crossed his legs;
that could be bad, a sign perhaps
of impatience. Harsch, who had
learnt to be sensitive about such
things, thought it might be time
to try a direct sounding. Coming
to the edge of the stage, he leaned
forward and said ingratiatingly,
“Can you see it building up yet,
Emile?”

“I’m still sitting here,” Mr.
Wreyermeyer said. You could call
it an enthusiastic response.

“Good I” Harsch said, turning
briskly, “gangling” to his yesmen,
raising a hand to Harry. The image
died behind him, and he stood fists
on hips, legs apart, looking down
at the occupants of the padded
seats, making his facial line soften.
It was a triumph of deception.

“Those of you who never had
the privilege of meeting Art,” he
said, “will already be asking, ‘What
sort of a man could reveal a city
with such genius?’ Not to keep you
in suspense any longer. I’ll tell you.
When he was on this last consign-
ment, I was just a fresh cub kid
in the solid business, working under
Art. I guess I learnt a whole lot
from Art, in the matter of plain,
solid humanity as well as technique.
We’re going to show you a bit of
film now that a cameraman of Unit
Two took of Art without him
knowing. I believe you’ll find it
. . . kind of moving. O.K., Harry.”

95

The solid was suddenly there.
In a corner of one of New Union’s
spaceports. Art Stacker and several
of his documentary team sat against
junked oxygenation equipment,
taking lunch. Art was perhaps
forty-eight, a little over Harsch’s
present age. Hair blown over his
eyes, he was devouring a gigantic
sandwich and talking to a
pudding-faced youth with crew cut
and putty nose. Looking round at
the solid, Harsch identified his
younger self with some embarrass-
ment and said, “You got to remem-
ber this was shot all of twenty
years ago.”

“You sure weren’t so gangling
in those days, boss,” one of his
rooters in the audience called.

Art was speaking. '*Now Wrey-
ermeyer has given us the chance to
go through with this consignment*,*
he was saying, **let*s not spoil it by
being glib. Anyone in a city this
size can pic\ up interesting faces,
or build up a few snappy archi-
tectural angles into a pattern, with
the help of background noise. Let^s
try to aim for something deeper. 1
want to find what really lies at the
heart of this metropolis.**

**Supposing it hasnt got a heart,
Mr. Stacker?** the youthful Harsch
asked. “/ mean — you hear of heart-
less men and women; could be
this is a heartless city.**

**That*s fust a semantic quibble**
Art said. **All men and women
have hearts, even the cruel ones.
Same with cities — and Vm not

96

denying 'New Union isnt a cruel
city in many ways. People who live
in it have to fight all the while;
you can see it in our line of busi-
ness. The good in them gradually
gets overlaid and lost. You start
good, you end bad just because you
— oh, hell, you forget, I suppose.
You forget you're human!'

"That must be terrible, Mr.
Stacker," young Harsch said. "I'll
take care never to get that way
myself. I won't let New Union
beat me!'

Art finished his sandwich, look-
ing searchingly at the blank young
face blinking into his. "Never mind
watching out for New Union," he
said, almost curtly. "Watch out for
yourself."

He stood up, wiping his big
hands on his slacks. One of his
lighting crew offered him a mes-
c^ale and said, "Well, that's about
tucked up the spaceport angle. Art.
What sector do we tackle next?"

Art looked round smilingly, the
set of his jaw noticeable. "We take
on the politicians next," he said.

The youthful Harsch scrambled
to his feet. Evidently he had no-
ticed the camera turned on them,
for his manner was noticeably more
aggressive.

"Say, Mr. Stacks, if we could
clear up the legal rackets of New
Union," he said, "at the same time
as we get our solids — why, we'd be
doing everyone a favor. We'd get
famous, all of us I"

“I was just a crazy, idealistic kid

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

back in those days,” the matured
Harsch, at once abashed and de-
lighted, protested to the audience,
“I’d still to learn life is nothing
but a kind of coordination of
rackets.” He smiled widely to in-
dicate that he might be kidding,
saw that Mr. Wreyermeyer was not
smiling, and lapsed into silence
again.

In the screen. Unit Two was
picking up its traps. The cumber-
some polyhedron of a trans-Ma-
gellanic freighter sank into the
landing pits behind them and blew
off steam piercingly.

"I'll tell you the sort of thing
we want to try and capture," Art
told his team as he shouldered a
pack of equipment. "When I first
came to this city to join Supernova,
eight years ago, I was standing in
the lobby of the Federal Justice
building before an important in-
dustrial case was to be tried. A
group of local politicians about to
give evidence passed me, and I
heard one say as they went in-^
Tve never forgotten it--' Have your
hatreds ready, gentlemen'. For me,
it will always embody the way that
prejudice can engulf a man.
Touches like that we must have!'

Art and his fellows trudged out
of the picture, shabby, determined.
The solid faded, and there before
the screen stood Harsch Berlin,
spruce, determined.

“It still doesn’t begin to stack
up, Harsch,” Ruddigori said from
his armchair. He was Mr. Wreyer-

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

97

meyer’s Personnel Manager, and a
big shot in his own right. You had
to be careful with a louse like that.

“Perhaps you don’t get the sub-
tleties, Ruddy, eh?” Harsch sug-
gested sweetly. “The thing’s stack-
ing fine. That little cameo has just
demonstrated to you why Art never
made the grade. He talked too
much. He theorized. He shot off
his mouth to kids like I was then.
He wasn’t hard enough in the
head. He was nothing more nor
less than just an artist. Ruddy.
Right?”

“If you say so, Harsch, boy,” Rud-
dy said levelly, but he turned at
once to say something inaudible to
Mr. Wreyermeyer. TTie familiarity
of it! Caught for a second off guard,
Harsch glared stilettos at the studio
chief; Mr. Wreyermeyer sat im-
mobile as if made of stone, al-
though now and again his throat
bobbed frog-like as he swallowed.

Harsch made a brusque signal to
Harry in the projection box. He
would swing this deal on Super-
nova if he had to stay here all af-
ternoon and evening plugging it.
He blew his nose and slipped a
slimming tablet into his mouth
under cover of his handkerchief.

“Right,” he said sharply. “You
should have seen enough to grasp
the general picture. Now we’re
going in for the kill. Are you
story girls taking notes, down
there?”

A babble of female assent reas-
sured him.

“Right,” he repeated automatic-
ally.

Behind him. Art Stacker’s New
Union was recreated once more, a
dty which administered the might
of the growing Region and swam
in the wealth of a gigantic plane-
tary sweepstake: assembled here
as the mind of Art Stacker had
visualized it two decades ago, a
city acting at once as liberator and
conqueror to its multitudinous in-
habitants.

Now evening was falling over its
maze of concrete canyons. The sun
set, the great globes of atomic light
tethered in the sky poured their
radiance over thoroughfares mov-
ing with a new awareness. Harry
had dimmed down the original
commentary, giving Harsch the
opportunity to provide his own.

“Here it is, night coming down
over our fabulous city, just as we’ve
all seen it lots of times,” he said
briskly. “Art caught it all as it’s
never been caught before or since.
He used to tell me, I remember,
that night was the time a city really
showed its claws, so the boys spent
a fortnight padding around look-
ing for sharp, broken shadows that
suggested claws. The craze for sig-
nificant detail again. Some of their
pickings are coming up now.”

The clawed shadows moved in,
fangs of light bit into the dark
flanks of side alleys. An almost tan-
gible restlessness, like the noisy si-
lence of a jungle, cluttered across
the ramps and squares of New

98

Union; even the present onlookers
could feel it. They sat more alertly
in their seats and despatched an
underdog to enquire why the air-
conditioning was not working
better. Mr. Wreyermeyer stirred;
that must mean something.

Behind a facade of civilization,
the night life of New Union had a
primitive ferocity; the Jurassic
wore evening dress. In Art Stack-
er’s interpretation of it, it was es-
sentially a dreary world, the amal-
gam of the homesicknesses and
lusts of the thousand nations who
had drifted to Keirson. The indi-
vidual was lost in this atom-lit
wilderness where thirty million
people could be alone together
within a few square miles.

Art made it quite clear that the
thronging multitude, queuing for
leg shows and jikey joints, were
harmless. Living in flocks, they had
developed the flock mentality. They
were too harmless to tear anything
of value out of the flux of New
Union; all they asked for was a
nice time. You could only really
enjoy yourself by stepping hard on
a thousand faces.

Art showed the hard-steppers.
They were the ones who could af-
ford to buy solitude and a woman
to go with it. They drifted above
the sparkling avenues in bubbles,
they ate in undersea restaurants,
nodding in brotherly fashion to the
sharks watching them through the
glass walls, they wined in a hun-
dred little dives, they sat tensely

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

over the gaming tables: and at the
imperious signal of their eyes, there
was always a serf to come running,
a serf who sweated and trembled
as he ran. That is how a galactic
city runs; power must always re-
member it is powerful.

Now the scene changed again.
The camera began to investigate
Bosphorus Concourse.

The Concourse lay at the heart
of New Union. Here the search for
pleasure was tensest, intensest.
Barkers cried their rival attractions,
liquor flowed like a high tide,
cinema vied with sinema, the
women of the night were spider-
ishly busy.

Harsch Berlin could not resist
putting a word in.

“Have you ever seen such real-
ism, gentlemen?” he demanded.
“Here are ordinary folks — folks
like you, like me — ^just getting
down to having a whale of a good
time. Think what wonderful prop-
aganda these shots are for our splen-
did city! And where’ve they been
these last twenty years? Why, lying
down in our vaults, neglected, al-
most lost. Nobody would ever have
seen them if I hadn’t hunted them
up!”

Mr. Wreyermeyer spoke.

“I’ve seen them, Harsch,” he said
throatily. “For my money, they’re
too sordid to have any popular
appeal.”

Harsch stood absolutely still. A
dark stain rose in his face. Those
few words told him — and every-

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

one else present — exactly where he
stood. He stood out on a limb. If
he persisted as he wanted to per-
sist, he would rouse the big chief’s
anger; if he backed down, he would
lose face, and there was not a man
here who, for various reasons,
would not like to see that. He was
spiked.

In the solid behind Harsch, men
and women queued tightly for ad-
mission to a horror show Death in
Death Cell Six. Above them, dwarf-
ing them, was a gigantic still of a
man being choked, head down,
eyes popping, mouth gaping. You
could see his epiglottis. It was a
masterpiece of realism. That show
had actually been produced by Mr.
Wreyermeyer himself in his
younger days; Harsch had intended
a pretty compliment about it, but
now in his hesitation he let the
moment slip.

“We needn’t show all this sordid
stuff, Emile, if you don’t think so,”
he said, smiling as if in pain. “Fm
just giving it a run-over to put
the general idea before you. We’ll
—you’ll settle on the final details
later, naturally,”

Mr. Wreyermeyer said nothing.
He nodded his head once, neutrally.
Ruddigori spoke up.

“You’re too sold on Art Stacker,
Harsch,” he said kindly. “He was
only a common bum with a camera,
after all.”

“Sure, Ruddy, sure,” Harsch re-
plied; he always knew when it was
time to back away. “Haven’t I

99

just told Mr. Wreyermeyer here
that this is sordid stuff? Our job
after will be to pick the good bits
out of the junk.”

“Nobody could do that better
than you, H. B.,” Tony Caley
called.

“Thanks, Tony,” Harsch said,
nodding cordially to him. Tony was
his head yesman; the bastard was
going to feel the ax afterwards for
not giving better backing. Why,
he’d not spoken till now, just sat
there leering at the stenographers.

Art Stacker’s city was emptying
now. Crumpled mascahale packets,
newspapers, tickets, programs, pre-
ventatives, bills and flowers lay in
the gutters. The revelers, sick and
tired, were straggling home.

“Now watch this!” Harsch said,
putting force into his voice, clench-
ing his fists, gangling. “This is
really a^ human document. This is
where Stacker really came off the
rails.”

A fog was settling lightly over
Bosphorus Concourse, emphasizing
the growing vacancy of the place.
A fat man, clothes all unbuttoned,
reeled out of a bordel and made
for the nearest lift. It sank away
with him, like a ball falling down
a drain.

From St. Bosphorus Cathedral,
two thirty sounded. Lights snapped
off in a deserted restaurant, leav-
ing on the retina an after-image of
upturned chairs. One last prosti-
tute clattered wearily home, clutch-
ing her handbag.

100

Yet still the Concourse was not
entirely empty of humanity. The
remorseless eye of the camera
hunted down, in sundry doorways,
the last watchers of the scene. They
had stood there, not participating,
when the evening was at its height;
they stood there still when the first
milkman was stirring. Watching
the crowd, watching the stillness,
watching the last whore hobble
home, they stood in their doorways
as if peering from a warren. From
the shadows, their faces gleamed
with a terrible, inexpressible ten-
sion. Only their eyes itioved.

“These men,” Harsch said, “fas-
cinated Stacker. I told you he was
crazy in some ways. He reckoned
that if anybody could lead him to
the heart of the city he kept on
talking about, these people could.
Night after night, they were always
there. God knows what they
wanted! Stacker called them "the
impotent specters of the feast."'

“They’re still there,” Ruddigori
said unexpectedly. “You find them
lurking in the doorways of any
big city. I’ve wondered about them
myself.”

That was unexpected. It was not
policy to wonder about anything
not directly connected with Super-
nova. Harsch raised his hand to
Harry, a recrudescence of hope
making him gangle again.

The solidscrcen blanked, then
was filled with form once more.
An overhead camera tracked two
men down a canal-side walk; the

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

two men were Art Stacker and his
cub assistant, Harsch Berlin.

“In this shot,” the mature Harsch
told his audience, “you see me and
Stacker going along to the home
of one of these night-birds; I tagged
along just for the laughs.”

The two figures paused outside
a little tailor’s shop, looking doubt-
fully at the sign which read sim-
ply: A. WILLITTS TAILOR.

'7 hat/e the feeling we are going
to turn up something big*/ Art was
saying tensely as the sound came
on. *"We*re going to hear what a
city really is, from someone who
must have felt its atmosphere most
\eenly. But it wont be pleasant, I
warn you, Harsch. You stay here
if youd prefer.**

'"Gee, Art,** the youngster pro-
tested, "if something big*s going to
brea\, I naturally want to be in on
it.**

Art looked speculatively at his
assistant.

"1 don*t suppose there*ll be any
money in this, son*,* he said.

"I \now that. Art. I don*t only
thin\ of money; what do you takje
me for? This is something Philo-
sophical, isn*t it?**

"Yeah. I guess it is.**

They went together into the
little shop.

Darkness reigned inside. It
seemed to seep out of the black
G-suits which were the tailor’s spe-
cialty; they hung stiff and bulky
all round the walls, funereal in the
gloom. The tailor, Willitts, was a

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

little newt of a man; his features
were recognizable as one of the
Concourse nightwatchers. Art’s un-
derlings had trailed him to this
lair.

Willi tts’ eyes bulged and glis-
tened like those of a drowning rat.
He was melancholy and undershot.
He denied ever going to Bosphorus
Concourse. When Art persisted, he
fell silent, dangling his little fingers
against the counter.

'7'm not a policeman^ Art said.
'*rm just curious, I want to l{now
why you stand there every night
the way you do*,*

*‘lt*s nothing to be ashamed of**
Willitts muttered, dropping his
eyes. '7 dont do anything.**
**That*s just it,** Art said eagerly.
**You don*t do anything. Why do
you — and the others lH{e you —
stand there not doing anything?
What are you thinking of? What
do you see?**

**rve got my business to attend
to, Mister,** Willitts protested. ^l*m
busy. Cant you see Vm busy?**
“Answer my questions and Til
go away.”

**We could maXe it worth your
while, Willitts,** young Harsch in-
sinuated, patting his breast pocket.

The little man’s eyes were fur-
tive. He licked his lips. He looked
so tired, you would think there was
not a spark of blood in him.

**Leave me alone,** he said.
*'That*s all I asX — just leave me
alone, Vm not hurting you am I?
A customer might come in any

101

Ume. Vm not answering your ques-
tions, Now please beat it out of
here.**

**We*ve got ways and means of
getting the answers we want*,*
Harsch threatened.

‘^Leave me alone, you young

thug. If you touch me, 1*11 call the

Unexpectedly, Art jumped on
him, pinning the little fellow down
backwards across the counter, hold-
ing him by his thin shoulders. Of
the two, Art’s face was the more
desperate.

**Come on, Willitts,** he said.
'I've got to \now. I've got to Xnow.
I've been digging down deeper into
this cesspit of a city wee\ after
weeX, and you're the coc\roach
I've found creeping round at the
bottom of it. You're going to tell
me what it feels li\e down there
or, so help me. I'll breaX your

neeXr

"How can I tell you?** Willitts
demanded with sudden, mouselike
fury. "I can*t tell you. I can't— I
haven't got the words. You'd have
to be ... my sort before you could
savvy."

And although Art knocked the
litde tailor about and pulled his
hair out, he got nothing more from
him than that. In the end they gave
it up and left Willitts panting, ly-
ing behind his counter in the dust.

"I didn't mean to lose control of
myself liXe that," Art said, licking
his knuckles as he emerged from
the shop. He must have known the

102

camera was on him, but was too pre-
occupied to care. **Som€thing just
went blan\ inside me, We*ve all got
our hatreds jar too ready, I guess.
But / must find out . .

His set face loomed larger and
larger in the screen, eclipsing all
else. One eyelid was flickering un-
controllably. He moved out of
sight, still talking.

The screen went blank.

“Terrific stuff!’* Tony Caley
shouted. “It should go over big.”

Everyone was talking in the audi-
ence now, except the big chief;
they had all enjoyed the beating up.

“Seriously,” Barnes was saying,
“that last scene did have something.
You could replay it with proper
actors, have a few bust teeth and
things and it would really be solid.
Maybe finish with the little guy
getting knocked into the canal.”

Timing his exits was a specialty
with Harsch. He had them all
awake and now he would show
them no more. Hands in pockets,
he came slowly down the few steps
into the auditorium.

“So there’s the story of a jerk
called Art Stacker for you, fellows,”
he said, as his right foot left the
last step. “He couldn’t take it. The
solid business was too tough for
him. Right there and then, after
he beat up the tailor, he dropped
everything and disappeared into
the stews of New Union. He didn’t
even stay to round off his picture,
and Unit Two folded up. He was a
real quitter, was Art.”

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Ruddy came up to Harsch and
said, “You have me interested. How
come, though, we’ve had to wait
twenty years to hear all this?”

Carefully, Harsch spread his
hands wide and smiled.

“Because Stacker was a dirty
word round here when he first
quit,” he said, aiming his voice
not at Ruddy but at Mr. Wreyer-
meyer, “and after that he was for-
gotten and his work was tucked
away. Then — well, it happened I
ran into Stacker a couple of days
back, and that gave me the idea
of working over the old Unit Two
files.”

He tried to move in front of Mr.
Wrcyermeyer, to make it easier for
the big chief to compliment him on
his sagacity if he felt so inclined;
but Ruddy got in the way again.

“You mean Art’s still alive?”
Ruddy persisted. “He must be quite
an old man now. What’s he do-
ing, for heaven’s sake?”

“He’s just a down-and-out,”
Harsch said. “I didn’t care to be
seen talking to him, so I got away
from him as soon as possible. Man,
he stinks!”

He shook Ruddy off and stood
before the big chief.

“Well, Emile,” he said, as calmly
as he could, “don’t tell me you
don’t smell a solid there — ^some-
thing to sweep ’em off their feet
and knock ’em in the aisles.”

As if deliberately prolonging the
suspense, Mr. Wreyermeyer took
another drag on his mescahale be-

HAVE YOUR HATREDS READY

fore removing it from his mouth.

“We’d have to have a pair of
young lovers in it,” he said stonily.

The old sucker had fallen for it I

“Sure,” Harsch exclaimed, scowl-
ing to hide his elation. “Two pairs
of young lovers! Anything you say,
Emile.”

Tony Caley was also there, try-
ing to horn in on his boss’s suc-
cess.

“And these guys in the door-
ways, Mr. Wreyermeyer,” he said
eagerly, “maybe they could be gal-
actic spies and we could make it
into a thriller, hey.?”

“Yep, that figures,” Tony’s yes-
man declared, smacking the palm
of his hand with his fist. “And this
Art Stacker could be their dupe,
see, and we could have him shot
up in the end, see.”

“Not too much shooting,” Barnes
interrupted. “I see it more as a saga
of the common man, and we could
call it Our Town or something —
if that title isn’t under copyright.”

“How about Starry Sidewall^s for
a name?” someone else suggested.

“It’s a vehicle for Eddie Clap-
worth!” Hi Pilloi shouted.

The boys were playing with it.
Harsch had won his round; man,
how he loved himself!

He was hustling out of the little
theatre with the rest of them when
Ruddy touched his arm.

“You never told me, Harsch,” he
said, “just how you happened to
find Art again.”

There was something subversive

103

about Ruddy; it was a miracle he
had chmbed as high as he had. He
was forever asking questions.

“It was like this,” Harsch said.
“I happened to have a rendezvous
with some dame a couple of nights
back. I was looking for a taxi-bub-
ble afterwards — there weren’t many
about, because this was the early
hours of the morning, and I had to
walk through Bosphorus Con-
course. This old guy hanging
about in a doorway recognized me
and called out to me.”

“And it was Art?” Ruddy en-
quired excitedly.

“It was Art all right. He’d have
kept me talking all night if I
hadn’t been firm. But at least it put
me onto the concept of this solid.
Well, see you tomorrow. Ruddy.”

“Just a minute, Harsch. This is
important. Didn’t Art say if he
had found out what was at the
heart of the city? That was what
he’d gone looking for, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Oh, he found it all right.
He wanted to tell me all about it
— at two in the morning! I told
him what he could do!”

“But what did he say, Harsch?”

“Hell, man, Ruddy, what’s it
matter what a broken-down bum
like Stacker said or didn’t say? It
was his usual patter, but even
worse to understand than in the
old days — ^you know. Philosophical.
I was pretty plastered, I couldn’t
bother to take it in.”

“But had he found the secret he
was chasing?”

104

‘‘So he said — but whatever it was,
it had strictly no cash value. His
pants were in rags, I tell you; the
crazy guy was shivering all the
time. Say, I must move. See you,
Ruddy.”

They made the solid. It was
one of Supernova’s big budget pro-
ductions for the year. It raked in
the money on every inhabited
planet of the Region, and Hirsch

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Berlin was a made man thereafter.
They called it Song of a Mighty
City\ it had three top bands, seven-
teen hit tunes and a regiment of
dancing girls. The whole thing was
reshot in the studios in the pastel
shades deemed most appropriate
for a musical, and they finally
picked on a more suitable city than
New Union for the locale. Art
Stacker, of course, did not come
into it at all.

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Vve never understood why Hollywood changed Dkk Matheson's the
SHRINKING MAN tO THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN. Personally I like
my shrinkings ( or any other unlikely phenomena) to be as credible as the
author can make them. In a change of pace from his satires, Ron Gou-
lart lends unusual credibility to the theme of variations in body size—
not, to be sure, by scientific plausibility in the physiological process,
but by acute conviction in the psychological reactions to the experience.

...and Curiouser

by RON GOULART

. . . she was now about two feet high,
and was going on shrinking rapidly
. . . she soon made out that she was
in the pool of tears which she had
wept when she was nine feet tall.

Alice’s adventures in wonderland

Sam Morris didn’t think about it
until a minute or so after he’d
kissed her. “Just heavy traffic on the
freeway after the canal turnoff.
And I got stuck right to five with
MacDonald,” he was saying, won-
dering if he’d chewed enough
mints and looking for a hanger for
his coat. “I haven’t stopped to have
a drink for over a month.” He
turned to look at his wife.

Connie smiled a little nervously,
pulling at her sweater in back. “I
was worried a bit, Sam. I’m sorry.
It’s one of my conditioned re-
sponses.”

He looked down at her feet. She
was wearing the mukluks he’d
given her for her birthday two
years back. “Connie, were you
standing on something when I
came in.^”

She walked by him and Started
for the kitchen. “No, Sam. I grew
two inches is all.”

The cream-colored door slammed
after her.

“OK, so you got a good exit line.
Now, damnit, what are you talking
about?” he said looking into the
kitchen.

Connie was bent down examin-
ing something in the oven of the
bright white stove. “A roast’d be
nice tonight, I thought, Sam.”

Sam took a cigarette out of the
pack in his shirt pocket. Lighting
it, he Straddled the tube kitchen
chair nearest his wife. “You men-

105

106

tioned, sweet, that you’d grown
two inches. Did you do that today
while I was in the city? I often
wonder what you do while I’m
away at the office.”

Connie let the oven flip shut. “I
just got the idea you liked taller
women.” She managed to give the
impression that she was looking up
at him even though he was sitting
down.

“Is that why I married a girl
five three?” He remembered to
puff his cigarette.

“I’m not talking about who you
married. I said what I thought you
liked.”

“Connie.” Sam stood. “It’s nearly
a year since we left Earth, huh?”
Close to her he realized she was
two inches taller all right. “Really,
Connie, coming to Peregrine, get-
ting transferred, was the right
change. The sort of thing on Earth,
it hasn’t happened here. I think
I’m reformed or whatever and it
won’t.” He touched her hair.

Connie turned half to him.
“Maybe, Sam.” Then she walked
away to the dishware cabinet.

“Why don’t you have me
trailed?” He reached for the knob
on the kitchen door. Stopped and
threw his cigarette at the sink. As
it fizzled he came back to Connie.
“How in the Christ did you grow
two inches?”

Connie dodged and set dishes on
the table. “What I do during the
day, Sam, if you’re interested.
What I do here one hundred and

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

fifty-three miles from the city.”
She went to the sink and fished
out the cigarette butt, dumping it
in the plastic bag by the vacuum
closet. “What I do is sit here for
awhile and enjoy the climate.”

“We decided on this because of
your allergies,” Sam said.

“Then if I’m in an out-going
mood I drive to our nearest neigh-
bor. That is twenty-six miles. To
give you the details.”

“I know where the Fulmers live.”

“But once in awhile I go further
away. To those hills over there.”

Out of the small kitchen window
only the dry yellow earth and the
fuzzy joshua trees showed. To sec
the hills you had to go into the liv-
ing room.

“And the exercise made you
grow.”

“I found a place over there. I
don’t understand it yet. There’s a
pool, too. I’ve been swimming
there.” She bent to look at the
roast again. “Like about last week
I was thinking that maybe if I was
taller things would be better. And
I was. That was while I was in the
pool. But then I came home and
found out I could be taller if I
wanted to. Or go back to my old
height.”

Sam sat down. “That’s ridicu-
lous.”

“Probably. It’s true. Today I just
decided to grow.” Something in a
pot on the top of the stove began
to make bubbling sounds. “That’s
all.” Connie got a holder and car-

. . . AND CURIOUSER

107

ried the pot to the drain board.

When Connie served dinner Sam
moved in his chair so he would be
facing his plate. After he finished
the chocolate pudding Sam said,
“You’re not kidding, are you,
Connie?”

She cleared her throat. “No.”

“Well.” Sam picked up his coffee
cup, put it down. “I’ve been trying
to come up with the right little
saying. You know — the old Venu-
sian Schoolmaster says, 'Don’t mess
with the universe.’ You think, Con-
nie, the pool is dangerous?”

“I had an examination last week.
Remember, Sam ? The day you
took the trip. I’m healthy. Except
for the allergies, of course.”

He wanted to keep away from
that. The pool might be OK. It was
probably good for Connie to be
occupied with something. “I re-
member some more maxims. But
they date back to my days in
Columbus, on Earth. When I
didn’t know there was a planet
named Peregrine.” He looked at
his wife and decided to add, “Or
a girl named Connie. You want to
be two inches taller, be.” If she
really got involved with this it
might eventually be possible to stay
in the city on a weekend now and
then. Sam smiled at Connie and
finished his coffee, even though it
was cold now.

It took Sam only a week or so
to become used to his wife’s new
height. By the time he went to the

six-planet sales meeting for his
agency he was adjusted to kissing
her two inches higher than for-
merly.

He was on Gamaliel for four
days. He had planned on three but
hadn’t expected to run into the girl
who headed the food copy group
on Barnum.

Sam got back to his home on
the desert early on a dry afternoon.
A sharp wind was starting to come
up and the joshua trees were get-
ting more askew. The hills seemed
closer.

Connie wasn’t in the house. Sam
sat on the edge of a sofa chair for
several minutes, then decided to
take a shower.

He was in the stall, trying to de-
cide what sort of a song he was
in the mood to sing, when he heard
a crashing in the back yard. It
sounded like the old swing had
collapsed. Turning off the water
Sam put on his robe and wrapped
a towel around his head. The first
few steps his bare feet made dark
footprints on the rug.

Out by the garage area Connie
was standing with her hands be-
hind her back. “Sam,” she said.
“I didn’t know you were back.
“How was the trip?”

Sam stepped onto the porch. The
swing he’d put out by the garage
was bent and tangled in a heap.
He was halfway down the gravel
path, walking gingerly, when the
thing hit him this time. He looked
over at Connie alongside the ga-

108

rage and the relationship finally im-
pressed him. “Connie, why in the
hell are you nine feet tall?”

Connie made a vague gesture
with her right hand. “I didn’t know
you were going to be back until
dinner time.”

Sam backed away a few feet.
“What’s that got to do with it?”

“Well, I got to wondering yester-
day what it would be like to be
nine feet tall.” She frowned and
looked off. “Now, don’t think I’m
silly, but I was wondering how
those, you know, circus people
feel. It’s really not as interesting as
I thought. Even wondering how it
feels to be a short Venusian.”

Sam took the towel off his head.

“I’m sorry about the swing,”
Connie said. “I got tired. I was out
in the hills swimming.”

Sam made a ball out of the towel.

“I was worried, Sam. I thought
you maybe met a girl on Gamaliel.
A model, probably. Like Noreen,
was it? I knew if all your agency
people from six planets get together
there’d be women around and all.
It was Noreen, wasn’t it?”

“Which time?” Sam threw his
towel at the barbecue pit and went
into the house.

When he finished his second
shower he found Connie in the liv-
ing room watching the Kine. She
was back to her usual size. Or
rather she was two inches taller,
but Sam had adjusted to that.

Sam decided to call his wife

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

every morning and usually each
afternoon for awhile. He couldn’t
tell from her voice if she was the
right size, but he didn’t want her
to feel alone. He tried not to be
late more than one night a week
and made sure he usually left the
city before five.

The day of Connie’s twenty-
ninth birthday Sam left his oflSce
at noon and bought, when he got
to the shopping center nearest
home, two quarts of strawberry
ice cream, teleported fresh daily
from Mars, and three pounds of
sugar cookies, made from an exclu-
sive old Earth recipe. For himself
he’d got a funny paper hat and
for Connie a bottle of perfume, a
bracelet and two pairs of earrings.
The girl who headed the Barnum
food group was on Peregrine do-
ing a motivation study and she
helped Sam pick out the earrings.

It was a warm day and the desert
flickered beyond their low white
bungalow. Sam tooted the horn
twice, then played a Strauss waltz
on it. He scooped all the gifts up,
first putting on his funny hat, and
went skipping up to the front door.

He felt silly, but he wanted Con-
nie to have a simple, even banal
birthday without any worries.

The doorbell had a prearranged
tune so he had to satisfy himself
by tapping out Strauss on the door
with his knee.

He stopped after awhile and
started listening. Finally he heard
Connie coming. She smiled when

. . . AND CURIOUSER

109

she saw him, She was wearing
pedal pushers and a white blouse.
“Sam!"

“The same. Your childish hus-
band is here to help you recapture
lost time. Happy birthday.” He
pushed into the house.

Connie moved out of his way,
her hands absently tucking her
blouse in behind. “That’s fine,
Sam.”

Sam went on to the kitchen and
dropped everything on the table.
“We’ll have a party and then play
games.”

From the hall Connie said, ‘Td
rather just have a drink right now,
Sam.”

Sam picked out the packages
that were Connie’s gifts and took
them with him out into the hall.
Connie wasn’t there. Sam didn’t
call, he moved quietly along the
carpet to the door of the bedroom.

Connie was stuffing something
in the bottom drawer of her bureau.

“Sol” Sam said. “Who’s hiding
in there among the linen?”

“Sam, be funny someplace else
for a minute. Go away.”

“Why ? I was invited to this
party.” He dropped the presents
on the bed.

“I’ll be with you in a second,
Sam. Now go away.”

Sam pushed her gently aside and
opened the drawer. Rolled up un-
der the pillowcases was a little
girl’s pink party dress. “You plan-
ning to have a little girl? You
hadn’t mentioned it.”

“Shut up, Sam. Just shut the hell
up and get out.” She swept the tis-
sue-wrapped packages away and
dropped down on the bed.

“Connie, what’s the matter?”
Sam set the dress over a chair back.

“Nothing. Go away.”

Sam went around the bed and
picked up the three boxes. He
shook the perfume package but it
didn’t rattle. “Connie, were you
changing again? Why, this time?”

Not really to him she said, “OK.
I got to thinking what it’d be like
to have the sort of party I used to.
Back in Chicago. When I was
seven or eight.”

“Where’d you get the dress?”

“I drove into the village shop-
ping center yesterday.”

“Christ, Connie. I don’t know.”
Sam sat down on the bed, stuffed
the packages in his coat pocket. He
decided he’d have to devote him-
self to Connie almost entirely for
awhile. But it would have to be a
couple of weeks before he could
really do that.

Sam ran his hand softly along
Connie’s back. “Come on into the
kitchen before the ice cream melts.”

The next week Sam gathered up
travel folders from the spacelines,
the teleport office and even the
Earth J.C. When his vacation came
he wanted to go someplace with
Connie, someplace with grandeur
and a touch of romance, and con-
vince her that he loved her now
and could be trusted.

110

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

It was a cool night when he
spread the posters, folders, publicity
releases out on the rug. He edged
around the arrangement to switch
on the heating unit. The Mars
folder near the outlet fluttered.
“Myself I think it’s too hokey to
go back where we had our honey-
moon,” Sam said, moving a coaster
across the coffee table to meet his
drink.

“You’re really serious about go-
ing, Sam?” Connie said, leaning
forward on the sofa.

“Sure.” He cleared a space in
the center of the rug and sat cross-
legged. “I thought maybe even
Earth. You can get a cheap non-
stop now. Cheaper than the tele-
port deal. And if we went by
spaceship we could see more on
the way.”

Connie picked up the decanter
and added more scotch to her
drink. “You go ahead, Sam. You
need a rest.”

“Damn, what’s wrong, Connie?
This is a me-and-you type vaca-
tion.”

“We’ve been married five years,
Sam. Knock on wood.” She tapped
the leg of the coffee table. “Maybe
it’s time we started separate vaca-
tions.”

“Just drop the sentimental ges-
tures, Connie. I want to do it this
way.” He reached out and. grabbed
a Venus folder. “Venus. How’s
that?”

“I’d just as well stay here, Sam.”
She finished her ^rink and stood

up. “You might take Kathy.”

“Who is Kathy?” he said, open-
ing a Mars booklet.

“Nobody. Don’t look up. No-
body, Sam.”

He stood and went to the win-
dow. “Since we came here, Connie.
You know yourself . . .”

“You’ve done this bit already,
Sam. OK, forget it.”

Still not turning he said, in a
louder voice, “Damnit, Connie, I
am making noble sacrifices all over
the place to prove my love and all
that crap and you are being pretty
god damned bitchy.”

In leaving the room Connie
trampled five separate travel fold-
ers. “Anyway, I have things to keep
me busy here at home, Sam. And
it’s good for any allergies here.”

Sam gathered up his folders one
by one and went to the kitchen. He
jerked open the disposal panel and
threw them in. “Look, Connie,
don’t start up any nasty routines
again. For a whole year I have
been a damn model husband. But
if you want to be snotty I can sure
as hell fall back into my old evil
ways.”

“That’s kind of an ambiguous
threat, Sam.” Connie perched on
the edge of the table. “At first, ac-
tually, I just fooled around with
my size to try to please you. But
now, really, it’s interesting enough
in itself. I don’t need you, Sam. I
don’t want a vacation. I just want
to stay here.” She smiled at him.
“And I’m getting better, Sam. I

. . . AND CURIOUSER

111

can grow quite large, or get very
small.”

“Well, that’s very nice, Connie.
You have found yourself a new
hobby. No sir, you don’t need me
anymore. Goodby to old Sam.”

Connie gathered up her knees.
“You make a hobby of being in
the sack with every woman on six
planets. OK, so I have a hobby,
too.”

“Just knock it off.”

Connie grinned. “Look, Sam.
For instance.” Slowly, still smiling,
Connie started to shrink. When
she was three inches high she
stopped and waved at Sam.

It was too warm in the kitchen.
Too warm in the house. Sam went
out.

The wind across the desert was
cold. The Joshua trees bobbed and
shivered. Sam walked two miles
away from the house. He even
considered trying to find the pool,
damming it up, filling it in. But

Connie didn’t even have to go
back there anymore.

All right, he could make one
more effort to win her over to the
vacation idea. Then, by Christ, it
might just be Kathy.

When he came back Connie
wouldn’t answer him. It was even
warmer in the house. Sam went
into the clean white kitchen. His
wife was not by the table.

“Connie!” he called. And he
kept calling until it hurt him to.

All at once Sam clenched his
fists and said, “OK, God damn it!”
He jerked the insect swatter off
the wall.

Half crouching he started care-
fully through the house, the swatter
behind his back. “Here, Connie,”
he said in a level voice. “Come on,
Connie. Here now.”

He was still that way, slightly
stooped and calling softly, when
Connie stepped on the house and
smashed it.

Coming Next Month

Nothing that F&SF has ever published has drawn warmer praise from
readers or more urgent demands for more than Zenna Henderson’s mov-
ing stories of The People. It’s especially gratifying, therefore, to be able
to announce that our next issue (on the stands around May i) will feature
these interstellar exiles in a new long novelet, Babylon, The other feature
novelet will be one of the rare science-fantasy adventures of the Saint:
The Questing Tycoon, in which Leslie Charteris’ brighter buccaneer
encounters authentic voodoo in Haiti. In addition, there’ll be shorter stories
by Miriam Allen deFord, Rog Phillips and other regulars — plus the s.f.
debut of one of today’s liveliest writers of international intrigue, Edward
S. Aarons.

Recommended Reading

by ANTHONY BOUCHER

Belatedly the news trickles
through that the International Fan-
tasy Award, presented at last year’s
World Science Fiction Convention
in London, went to J. R. R. Tol-
kien’s THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

As regular readers of this depart-
ment may guess, I could not be more
delighted. This superb trilogy —
consisting of the fellowship of the
RING, the two towers and the re-
turn OF THE KING (Houghton Mif-
flin, $5 each) — is one of the major
achievements of epic imagination in
our lifetimes, and your life is the
poorer if you have failed to read it
One warning, however: Tolkien’s
Middle World is, like Baker Street
or the Land of Oz, a trap with a
firm and powerful grip. Enthusiasm
may here pass easily into mania;
and once infected by Tolkien’s
magic, you may never again quite
reenter this “real” 1958 world of
satellites and ICBMs and segrega-
tion and recession.

Allen & Unwin, Tolkien’s London
publishers, have disclosed that the
perfectionist scholar is now “work-
ing as best he can on the silmaril-
LioN, which might best be described
as the source book for the lord of
THE RINGS. We cannot,” they add,
“hold out any hope that it will be

published this year.” This is news
which should reduce at least the
English-speaking suicide rate to
zero; who could willingly depart
from a life which holds such a treas-
ure in its future.?

I can foresee that some month it
may be necessary to devote the
whole of this department to the
latest publications of Arthur C.
Clarke, who is not only one of the
best but also one of the most pro-
lific writers of the fact and fiction
of the future.

This month, however, there are
a mere four books by Clarke on
hand, headed by his fourth collec-
tion of short stories, the other side
OF THE SKY (HarcouTt, Brace, $3.95).
Of the 24 stories in this volume, 9
are from these pages; so you should
be not unfamiliar with the tone and
quality. Almost half the contents
has appeared in book form else-
where; but still this gathering seems
fresh and welcome, because what
Clarke emphasizes here is his sim-
ple, lively, pointed tales of the im-
mediate next-step-into-space future.

I’ve spoken before of the great
post-Sputnik problem in science fic-
tion: how to appeal to potential new
readers, lacking any conceptual
background, without boring the old

112

RECOMMENDED READING

113

hands. In most of the stories here,
Clarke’s skill as a writer, his in-
sight into ordinary people and his
eye for convincing detail enable him
to fascinate the jaded habitue with
a story so apparently simple that the
tyro will be equally delighted. Here,
for instance, are the Venture to the
Moon stories, which you’ll remem-
ber from their appearance here, and
the series which gives the volume
its title, a similar sextet (from In^
finity) of amusing and illuminating
anecdotes concerning the first
manned satellite station. These 12
tales appeared in America in s.f.
magazines, but in England in one
of the largest mass-circulation news-
papers. Clarke shows every sign of
being science fiction’s most success-
ful Apostle to the Gentiles since
Jules Verne; and I doubt if you can
find a better collection than this for
the conversion of your curious but
skeptical friends.

Of the two recently reprinted
Clarke novels, earthlight (1955;
Ballantine, $2.75; paper, 35^) is in
this same next-step manner of im-
mediacy and clarity, the city and
THE STARS (1956; Signet, 35^) is in
Clarke’s contrasting vein of poetic
symbolism and vast, almost mythi-
cal scope. Both are among the finest
novels in modern s.f. Clarke’s non-
fiction THE MAKING OF A MOON

(1957; Harper, $3.50) is not merely
reprinted but extensively (and ad-
mirably) revised, with many shrewd
comments on Sputnik and its im-
plications — a book even more desir-

able than it was in its excellent
original form.

A large proportion of s.f. these
days is imported from England;
and the quality of these imports is,
to put it politely, variable.

First comes the work of such
masters as Clarke and John Wynd-
ham, who has recently observed,
with great good sense, “I believe
there are plenty of people in the
world who like imaginative projec-
tions honestly carried out, but who
get bored to death by scientific ex-
hibitionism. So let us be more im-
plicit and less explicit— let us con-
sider the things that might happen,
not to the inhabitants of Uranus,
but to us, our friends, the things
we know,” What Mr. Wyndham
considers in the midwich cuckoos
(Ballantine, $3.50) is the inter-
planetary impregnation of every
fertile female in a quiet English vil-
lage. I am uncertain how specifically
this falls under “the things that
might happen”; but granted the
conception (and conceptions), at
once comic and terrifying, there
could be no more convincing (or
entertaining) exposition of human
reactions. From one of the oddest
and most provocative of recent
themes, Wyndham has developed
a singularly charming and believ-
able book.

Somewhat below the Wyndham
level, but still good value, is Fred
Hoyle’s the black cloud (Harper,
$2.95). The daring and controver-
sial astronomer proves a surpris-

114

ingly conventional and even old-
fashioned novelist; I can’t remem-
ber when I last read a book which
was simply a historical account of
the possible destruction of the
world and how a brilliant eccentric
scientist averted it. But no matter
how many times you have read this
story in your youth, you’ll still find
interest in Mr. Hoyle’s retelling,
chiefly because of his gift for writ-
ing extensive scientific (even
mathematical) exposition and de-
duction with such extraordinary
clarity that the layman feels as if
he were engaged in scientific rea-
soning himself. If Clarke writes
science iiction and Wyndham
science fiction, Hoyle’s book is
science fiction — ^and it’s good to see
that severe classic form revived.

Then one slips on down the scale
to makeweight English hackwork.
Charles Eric Maine’s world with-
out MEN (Ace, 35^) is about a
wholly successful oral contraceptive
which demoralizes society and (for
reasons which are never quite
clear) causes the extinction of the
male sex. The resultant all-female
civilization, based on homosexuality
and parthenogenesis, maintains it-
self unchanged for five millennia
until a research biologist creates a
male embryo . . . Maine reveals
neither the technical nor the intel-
lectual capacity to develop material
which could have been significant,
but is merely sensational. E. C.

Tubb’s THE MECHANICAL MONARCH

(Ace, 35^), published in England

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

as ENTERPRISE 21 15 by “Charles
Grey,” is also about a future Matri-
archy, run by a Giant Brain, and
so compounded of crude cliches of
prose and character that Maine’s
effort looks like genuine extrapola-
tive fiction. Double-bound with
Tubb is a not much more success-
ful American venture: Charles L.
Fontenay’s twice upon a time, a
routine Space Patrol exploit with
hardly a glint of the imaginative
individuality of Fontenay’s best
short stories.

Richard Matheson’s novels, good
though they are, have also been
disappointing in comparison to his
shorts; but now, in his first hard-
cover book-length> he finally hits
his novelistic stride, a stir of
ECHOES (Lippincott, $3) is labeled
by the publishers “A Novel of
Menace” — and the new tag is ap-
posite for this book which is at once
a mystery-suspense thriller (with a
startling surprise solution) and a
powerful science-fantasy of psionic
powers. Careless playing with hyp-
nosis opens up the entire uncon-
trolled potential of the mind of an
ordinary young man; he finds that
his new gifts make him anything
but the conventional s.f. superman
— ^rather he is the impotent victim
of unpredictably capricious forces.
In his writing of the quietly nat-
uralistic background to this melo-
drama, his creation of a sunny
suburban street hiding intrigue,
evil and death, Matheson suggests
that he may well be the successor

RECOMMENDED READING

115

to Cornell Woolrich in his sharp
evocation of the terror latent in
everyday existence.

Short story notes: Murray Lein-
ster’s OUT OF THIS WORLD (Avalon,
$2.75) contains the 4 stories which
appeared in Thrilling Wonder in
1947 (as by “William Fitzgerald”)
about Bud Gregory, the illiterate
hillbilly with an intuitive under-
standing of nuclear physics. Here
typographically disguised as a
novel, they still seem so excessively
extravagant that I (at least) can
find them neither credible nor
comic. . . . Robert Bloch’s terror
IN THE NIGHT (Ace, 35^) Contains
7 crime stories of which the last 2
are also fantasies. To regular fan-
tasy readers, the themes may be
familiar and predictable; but the
deftly ironic execution is charac-

teristic of the author. . . • T. E,
Dikty’s 5 TALES from tomorrow
(Crest, 35^) range from a joyous
Galaxy novelet by Simak to an un-
readable Astounding novella by
Cole. All are taken from Dikty’s
1955 BEST collection. Albert Comp-
ton Friborg’s Careless Love (F&SF,
July, 1954) has been tastefully re-
titled Tush-Button Passion, . . .
One’s only possible complaint about
Isak Dinesen’s last tales (Ran-
dom, $4) is that, unlike her pre-
vious collections, it includes no out-
and-out fantasies. Despite a couple
of tenuous borderline entries, I
really have no business mentioning
it here; but I shall nonetheless in-
sist that it must be read by anyone
with the faintest interest in the tex-
ture of prose or the art of story-
telling.

Art (and entertainment too, for that matter) is communication . . .
and hy no means always, or even primarily, on the conscious level. A
story (or a painting or a symphony or a ballet) may contain a symbol
which communicates immediately and powerfully to the unconscious,
with no reference to the conscious subject matter ostensibly communi-
cated; and an editor finds himself fascinated and a little frightened
when he publishes a story (Mildred Clin german' s The Wild Wood
is a good example) which evokes such disproportionately intense re-
sponse as to make it obvious that the author has unconsciously hit
upon some basic and deeply communicative symbol. Fritz Leiber--who
has not done badly himself, at times, in this matter of symbol-
communication^now wryly imagines the effect upon the world of the
attainment of the Ultimate Symbol:

Rump -Titty -Titty -Turn -TAH-Tee

by FRITZ LEIBER

Once upon a time, when just for
an instant all the molecules in the
world and in the collective uncon-
scious mind got very slippery, so
that just for an instant someAing
could pop through from the past
or the future or other places, six
very important intellectual people
were gathered together in the
studio of Simon Grue, the acciden-
tal painter.

There was Tally B. Washington,
the jazz drummer. He was beating
softly on a gray hollow African log
and thinking of a composition he
would entitle “Duet for Water
Hammer and Whistling Faucet.”

There were Lafcadio Smits, the
interior decorator, and Lester Phle-
gius, the industrial designer. They
were talking very intellectually
together, but underneath they were
wishing very hard that they had,
respectively, a really catchy design
for modernistic wallpaper and a
really new motif for industrial ad-
vertising.

There were Gorius James Mc-
Intosh, the clinical phychologist,
and Norman Saylor, the cultural
anthropologist. Gorius James Mc-
Intosh was drinking whisky and
wishing there were a psychological
test that would open up patients a

116

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

lot wider than the Rorschach or
the TAT, while Norman Saylor
was smoking a pipe but not think-
ing or drinking anything especially.

It was a very long, very wide,
very tall studio. It had to be, so
there would be room on the floor
to spread flat one of Simon Grue’s
canvases, which were always big
enough to dominate any exhibition
with yards to spare, and room
under the ceiling for a very tall,
very strong scaffold.

The present canvas hadn’t a bit
of paint on it, not a spot or a
smudge or a smear, except for the
bone-white ground. On top of the
scaffold were Simon Grue and
twenty-seven big pots of paint and
nine clean brushes, each eight
inches wide. Simon Grue was about
to have a new accident — a semi-
controlled accident, if you please.
Any minute now he’d plunge a
brush in one of the cans of paint
and raise it over his right shoulder
and bring it forward and down
with a great loose-wristed snap, as
if he were cracking a bullwhip, and
a great fissioning gob of paint
would go splaaAAT on the canvas
in a random, chance, arbitrary,
spontaneous and therefore quin-
tuply accidental pattern which
would constitute the core of the
composition and determine the
form and rhythm for many, many
subsequent splatters and maybe
even a few contact brush strokes
and impulsive smearings.

As the rhythm of Simon Grue’s

117

bouncy footsteps quickened, Nor-
man Saylor glanced up, though
not apprehensively. True, Simon
had b^n known to splatter his
friends as well as his canvasses,
but in anticipation of this Norman
was wearing a faded shirt, old
sneakers and the frayed tweed suit
he’d sported as assistant instructor,
while his fishing hat was within
easy reach. He and his armchair
were crowded close to a wall, as
were the other four intellectuals.
This canvas was an especially large
one, even for Simon.

As for Simon, pacing back and
forth atop his scaffold, he was ex-
periencing the glorious intoxica-
tion and expansion of vision known
only to an accidental painter in
the great tradition of Wassily Kan-
dinsky, Robert Motherwell and
Jackson Pollock, when he is spring-
ily based a good twenty feet above
a spotless, perfectly prepared can-
vas. At moments like this he was
especially grateful for these weekly
gatherings. Having his five especial
friends on hand helped create the
right intellectual milieu. He lis-
tened happily to the hollow rhyth-
mic thrum of Tally’s drumming,
the multisyllabic rippling of
Lester’s and Lafeadio’s conversa-
tion, the gurgle of Gorius’ whisky
bottle, and happily watched the
mystic curls of Norman’s pipe-
smoke. His entire being, emotions
as well as mind, was a blank tab-
let, ready for the kiss of the uni-
verse.

118

Meanwhile the instant was com-
ing closer and closer when all the
molecules in the world and in the
collective unconscious mind would
get very slippery.

Tally B. Washington, beating on
his African log, had a feeling of
oppression and anticipation, almost
(but not quite) a feeling of appre-
hension. One of Tally’s ancestors,
seven generations back, had been
a Dahomey witch doctor, which is
the African equivalent of an in-
tellectual with artistic and psychi-
atric leanings. According to a very
private family tradition, half jok-
ing, half serious, this five-greats-
grandfather of Tally had discovered
a Jumbo Magic which could “lay
holt” of the whole world and bring
it under its spell, but he had per-
ished before he could try the magic
or transmit it to his sons. Tally
himself was altogether skeptical
about the Jumbo Magic, but he
couldn’t help wondering about it
wistfully from time to time, es-
pecially when he was beating on his
African log and hunting for a new
rhythm. The wistful feeling came
to him right now, building on the
feeling of oppression and anticipa-
tion, and his mind became a tablet
blank as Simon’s.

The slippery instant arrived.

Simon seized a brush and
plunged it deep in the pot of black
paint. Usually he used black for a
final splatter if he used it at all, but
this time he had the impulse to
reverse himself.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Of a sudden Tally’s wrists lifted
high, hands dangling loosely, al-
most like a marionette’s. There was
a dramatic pause. Then his hands
came down and beat out a phrase
on the log, loudly and with great
authority.

Rump-titty-titty-tum-^KH'teel

Simon’s wrist snapped and the
middle air was full of free-falling
paint which hit the canvas in a fast
series of splaaAATs which was an
exact copy of Tally’s phrase.
Rump'titty ’titty ‘ttim-'XMi4eel

Intrigued by the identity of the
two sounds, and with their back
hairs lifting a little for the same
reason, the five intellectuals around
the wall rose and stared, while
Simon looked down from his scaf-
fold like God after the first stroke
of creation.

The big black splatter on the
bone-white ground was itself an
exact copy of Tally’s phrase, sound
made sight, music transposed into
visual pattern. First there was a big
roundish blot — that was the rump.
Then two rather delicate, many-
tongued splatters — those were the
titties. Next a small rump, which
was the turn. Following that a big
blot like a bent spearhead, not so
big as the rump but even more em-
phatic— the TAH. Last of all an in-
describably curled and broken little
splatter which somehow seemed ex-
actly right for the tee.

The whole big splatter was as
like the drummed phrase as an
identical twin reared in a different

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

environment and as fascinating as
a primeval symbol found next to
bison paintings in a Cro-Magnon
cave. The six intellectuals could
hardly stop looking at it and when
they did, it was to do things in
connection with it, while their
minds were happily a-twitter with
all sorts of exciting new projects.

Simon’s wide-angle camera was
brought into play on the scaffold
and negatives were immediately de-
veloped and prints made in the
darkroom adjoining the studio.
Each of Simon’s friends carried at
least one print when he left. They
smiled at each other like men who
share a mysterious but powerful
secret. More than one of them drew
his print from under his coat on the
way home and hungrily studied it.

At the gathering next week there
was much to tell. Tally had intro-
duced the phrase at a private jam
session and on his live jazz broad-
cast. The jam session had impro-
vised on and developed the phrase
for two solid hours and the mus-
icians had squeaked with delight
when Tally finally showed them
the photograph of what they had
been playing, while the response
from the broadcast had won Tally
a new sponsor with a fat pocket-
book.

Gorius McIntosh had got phen-
omenal results from using the
splatter as a Rorschach inkblot. His
star patient had seen her imagined
incestuous baby in it and spilled
more in one session than in the

119

previous hundred and forty. Stub-
born blocks in two analyses had
been gloriously broken, while three
catatonics at the state hospital had
got up and danced.

Lester Phlegius rather hesitantly
described how he was using “some-
thing like the splatter, really not
too similar” (he said) as an atten-
tion-getter in a forthcoming series
of Industrial-Design-for-Living ad-
vertisements.

Lafcadio Smits, who had an even
longer and more flagrant history
of stealing designs from Simon,
brazenly announced that he had
reproduced the splatter as a silk-
screen pattern on linen. The pat-
tern was already selling like hot-
cakes at five arty gift shops, while
at this very moment three girls
were sweating in Lafcadio’s loft
turning out more. He braced him-
self for a blast from Simon, men-
tally rehearsing the attractive deal
be was prepared to offer, one de-
pending on percentages of percen-
tages, but the accidental painter
was strangely abstracted. He
seemed to have something weigh-
ing on his mind.

The new painting hadn’t pro-
gressed any further than the first
splatter.

Norman Saylor quizzed him
about it semi-privately.

“I’ve developed a sort of artist’s
block,” Simon confessed to him
with relief. “Whenever I pick up
a brush I get afraid of spoiling that
first tremendous effect and I don’t

120

go on.” He paused. “Another thing
—I put down papers and tried
some small test-splatters. They all
looked almost exactly like the big
one. Seems my wrist won’t give
out with anything else.” He
laughed nervously. “How are you
cashing in on the thing, Norm?”

The anthropologist shook his
head. “Just studying it, trying to
place it in the continuum of primi-
tive signs and universal dream sym-
bols. It goes very deep. But about
this block and this . . . er . . . fancied
limitation of yours — ^I’d just climb
up there tomorrow morning and
splatter away. The big one’s been
photographed, you can’t lose that.”

Simon nodded doubtfully and
then looked down at his wrist and
quickly grabbed it with his other
hand, to still it It had been twitch-
ing in a familiar rhythm.

If the tone of the gathering after
the first week was enthusiastic, that
after the second was euphoric.
Tally’s new drummed theme had
given rise to a musical fad chris-
tened Drum ’n’ Drag which prom-
ised to rival Rock ’n’ Roll, while
the drummer himself was in two
days to appear as a guest artist on
a network TV program. The only
worry was that no new themes
had appeared. All the Drum ’n’
Drag pieces were based on dupli-
cations or at most developments of
the original drummed phrase. Tally
also mentioned with an odd reluc-
tance that a few rabid cats had
taken to greeting each other with

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

a four-handed patty-cake that beat
out rump-titty-titty-tum-*XM\'t€e.

Gorius McIntosh was causing a
stir in psychiatric circles with his
amazing successes in opening up
recalcitrant cases, many of them
hitherto thought fit for nothing
but eventual lobotomy. Colleagues
with M.D.*s quit emphasizing the
lowly “Mister” in his name, while
several spontaneously addressed
him as “Doctor” as they begged
him for copies of the McSPAT
(McIntosh’s Splatter Pattern Ap-
perception Test). His name had
been mentioned in connection with
the assistant directorship of the
clinic where he was a humble psy-
chologist. In closing he mentioned
that some of the state patients had
taken to pommeling each other
playfully while happily spouting
some gibberish variant of the orig-
inal phrase, such as ** Bump-biddy-
biddy-bum-^kYi-beeV* The resem-
blance in behavior to Tally’s hep-
cats was noted and remarked on
by the six intellectuals.

The first of Lester Phlegius’ at-
tention-getters (identical with the
splatter, of course) had appeared
and attracted the most favorable
notice, meaning chiefly that his
customer’s front office had received
at least a dozen curious phone calls
from the directors and presidents of
cognate firms. Lafcadio Smits re-
ported that he had rented a second
loft, was branching out into dress
materials, silk neckties, lampshades
and wallpaper, and was deep in

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

royalty deals with several big man-
ufacturers. Once again Simon Grue
surprised him by not screaming
robbery and demanding details and
large simple percentages. The ac-
cidental painter seemed even more
unhappily abstracted than the week
before.

When he ushered them from his
living quarters into the studio they
understood why.

It was as if the original big
splatter had whelped. Surrounding
and overlaying it were scores of
smaller splatters. They were all
colors of a well-chosen artist’s spec-
trum, blending with each other
and pointing each other up superb-
ly. But each and every one of them
was a perfect copy, reduced to one
half or less, of the original big
splatter.

Lafeadio Smits wouldn’t believe
at first that Simon had done them
free-wrist from the scaffold. Even
when Simon showed him details
proving they couldn’t have been
stenciled, Lafeadio was still unwill-
ing to believe, for he was deeply
versed in methods of copying de-
signs which had all the effects of
spontaneity.

But when Simon wearily climbed
the scaffold and, hardly looking at
what he was doing, flipped down
a few splatters exactly like the rest,
even Lafeadio had to admit that
something miraculous and fright-
ening had happened to Simon’s
wrist.

Gorins James McIntosh shook his

121

head and muttered a remark about
"stereotyped compulsive behavior at
the artistic-creative level. Never
heard of it getting that stereotyped,
though.”

Later during the gathering, Nor-
man Saylor again consulted with
Simon and also had a long confi-
dential talk with Tally B. Wash-
ington, during which he coaxed
out of the drummer the whole story
of his five-greats-grandfather.
When questioned about his own re-
searches, the cultural anthropolo-
gist would merely say that they
were "progressing.” He did, how-
ever, have one piece of concrete ad-
vice, which he delivered to all the
five others just before the gathering
broke up.

"This splatter does have an ob-
sessive quality, just as Gory said.
It has that maddening feeling of
incompleteness which cries for rep-
etition. It would be a good thing
if each of us, whenever he feels
the thing getting too strong a hold
of him, would instantly shift to
some engrossing activity which has
as little as possible to do with ar-
bitrarily ordered sight and sound.
Try to set up a countercompulsion.
One of us might even hit on a
counterformula — a specific anti-
dote.”

If the ominous note of warning in
Norman’s statement didn’t register
on all of them just then, it did at
some time during the next seven
days, for the frame of mind in
which the six intellectuals came to

122

the gathering after the third week
was one of paranoid grandeur and
hysterical desperation.

Tally’s TV appearance had been
a huge success. He’d taken to the
TV station a copy of the big splat-
ter and although he hadn’t in-
tended to (he said) he’d found
himself showing it to the M.C. and
the unseen audience after his drum
solo. The immediate response by
phone, telegram and letter had been
overwhelming but rather frighten-
ing, including a letter from a
woman in Smallhills, Arkansas,
thanking Tally for showing her
“the wondrous picture of God.”

Drum ’n’ Drag had become a
national and even international
craze. The patty-cake greeting had
become general among Tally’s rap-
idly-growing horde of fans and it
now included a staggering slap on
the shoulder to mark the tah.
(Here Gorius McIntosh took a
drink from his bottle and inter-
rupted to tell of a spontaneous,
rhythmic, lock-stepping procession
at the state hospital with an even
more violent TAH-blow. The mad
march had been forcibly broken up
by attendants and two of the pa-
tients treated at the infirmary for
contusions.) The New York Times
ran a dispatch from South Africa
describing how police had dis-
persed a disorderly mob of Univer-
sity of Capetown students who had
been chanting, **Shlump Shliddy
Shliddy Shlump shlah S/i/eel”—
which the correspondents had been

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

told was an anti-apartheid cry
phrased in pig-Afrikaans,

For both the drummed phrase
and the big splatter had b<xome
a part of the news, either directly
or by inferences that made Simon
and his friends alternately wheeze
and shudder. An Indiana town was
fighting a juvenile phenomenon
called Drum Saturday. A radio-TV
columnist noted that Blotto Cards
were the latest rage among studio
personnel; carried in handbag or
breast pocket, whence they could
be quickly whipped out and stared
at, the cards were claimed to be
an infallible remedy against bore-
dom or sudden attacks of anger
and the blues. Reports of a pent-
house burglary included among the
objects listed as missing “a recently-
purchased spotted linen wall-hang-
ing”; the woman said she did not
care about the other objects, but
pleaded for the hanging’s return,
“as it was of great psychological
comfort to my husband.” Splatter-
marked raincoats were a high-
school fad, the splattering being
done ceremoniously at Drum ’n’
Drag parties. An English prelate
had preached a sermon inveighing
against “this deafening new Ameri-
can craze with its overtones of
mayhem.” At a press interview
Salvador Dali had refused to say
anything to newsmen except the
cryptic sentence, “The time has
come.”

In a halting, hiccupy voice Gor-
ius McIntosh reported that things

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

were pretty hot at the clinic. Twice
during the past week he had been
fired and triumphantly reinstated.
Rather similarly at the state hospi-
tal Bump Parties had been alter-
nately forbidden and then encour-
aged, mostly on the pleas of en-
thusiastic psychiatric aides. Copies
of the McSPAT had come into the
hands of general practitioners who,
ignoring its original purpose, were
using it as substitutes for electro-
shock treatment and tranquilizing
drugs. A group of progressive psy-
chiatrists calling themselves the
Young Turks were circulating a
statement that the McSPAT con-
stituted the worst threat to classical
Freudian psychoanalysis since Al-
fred Adler, adding a grim scholarly
reference to the Dancing Mania
of the Middle Ages, Gorius finished
his report by staring around almost
frightenedly at his five friends and
clutching the whisky botde to his
bosom,

Lafcadio Smits seemed equally
shaken, even when telling about the
profits of his pyramiding enter-
prises. One of his four lofts had
been burglarized and another in-
vaded at high noon by a red-
bearded Greenwich Village Satan-
ist protesting that the splatter was
an illicitly procured Taoist magic
symbol of direst power. Lafcadio
was also receiving anonymous
threatening letters which he be-
lieved to be from a criminal drug
syndicate that looked upon Blotto
Cards as his creation and as com-

123

petitive to heroin and lesser forma
of dope. He shuddered visibly
when Tally volunteered the infor-
mation that his fans had taken to
wearing Lafcadio’s splatter-pat-
terned ties and shirts.

Lester Phlegius said that further
copies of the issue of the costly and
staid industrial Journal carrying his
attention-getter were unprocurable
and that many had vanished from
private offices and wealthy homes
or, more often, simply had the
crucial page ripped out.

Norman Saylor’s two photo-
graphs of the big splatter had been
pilfered from his locked third-floor
office at the university, and a huge
copy of the splatter, painted in a
waterproof black substance, had ap-
peared on the bottom of the swim-
ming pool in the girls’ gymnasium.

As they continued to share their
experiences, it turned out that the
six intellectuals were even more dis-
turbed at the hold the drummed
phrase and the big splatter had got
on them individually and at their
failure to cope with the obsession
by following Norman’s suggestion.
Playing at a Sunday-afternoon bar
concert. Tally had got snagged on
the phrase for fully ten minutes,
like a phonograph needle caught
in one groove, before he could let
go. What bothered him especially
was that no one in the audience
had seemed to notice and he had
the conviction that if something
hadn’t stopped him (the drum skin
ruptured) they would have sat

124

frozen there, wrists flailing, until
he died of exhaustion.

Norman himself, seeking escape
in chess, had checkmated his op-
ponent in a blitz game (where
each player must move without hes-
itation) by banging down his pieces
in the rump-titty rhythm— and his
subconscious mind had timed it, he
said, so that the last move came
right on the te€\ it was a little
pawn-move after a big queen-check
on the TAH. Lafcadio, turning to
cooking, had found himself mixing
salad with a rump-titty flourish,
(“...and a madman to mix it, as
the old Spanish recipe says,” he
finished with a despairing giggle.)
Lester Phlegius, seeking release
from the obsession in the compan-
ionship of a lady spiritualist with
whom he had been carrying on a
strictly Platonic love affair for ten
years, found himself enlivening
with the rump-titty rhythm the one
chaste embrace they permitted
themselves at each meeting. Phoebe
had torn herself away and slapped
him full-arm across the face. What
had horrified Lester was that the
impact had coincided precisely with
the TAH.

Simon Grue himself, who hadn’t
stirred out of his apartment all
week but wandered shivering from
window to window in a dirty old
bathrobe, had dozed in a broken
armchair and had a terrifying vi-
sion. He had imagined himself in
the ruins of Manhattan, chained
to the broken stones (perhaps be-

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

cause he had both wrists heavily
wound with scarves and cloths to
cushion the twitching), while across
the dusty jagged landscape all
humanity tramped in an endless
horde screeching the accursed
phrase and every so often came a
group of them carrying a two-story-
high poster (“. . . like those Soviet
parades,” he said) with the big
splatter staring blackly down from
it. His nightmare had gone on to
picture the dreadful infection
spreading from the Earth by space-
ship to planets revolving around
other stars.

As Simon finished speaking,
Gorius McIntosh rose slowly from
his chair, groping ahead of him-
self with his whisky bottle.

“That’s it!” he said from be-
tween bared clenched teeth, grin-
ning horribly. “That’s what’s hap-
pening to all of us. Can’t get it out
of our minds. Can’t get it out of our
muscles. Psychosomatic bondage!”
He stumbled slowly across the
circle of intellectuals toward Lester,
who was sitting opposite him. “It’s
happening to me. A patient sits
down across the desk and says with
his eyes dripping tears, ‘Help me.
Doctor McIntosh,’ and I see his
problems clearly and I know just
how to help him and I get up and
I go around the desk to him”—
he was standing right over Lester
now, bottle raised high— “and I
lean down so that my face is close
to his and then I shout rump-titty-
titty-tum-T AH-tee ! ”

RUMP-TITT\'-TITTY'TUM-TAH-TEE

At this point Norman Saylor de-
cided to take over, leaving to Tally
and Lafeadio the restraining of
Gorius, who indeed seemed quite
docile and more dazed than any-
thing else now that his seizure was
spent, at least temporarily. The cul-
tural anthropologist strode to the
center of the circle, looking very
reassuring with his pipe and his
strong jaw and his smoky tweeds,
though he kept his hands clasped
tightly together behind him.

“Men,” he said sharply, “my re-
search on this thing isn’t finished
by a long shot, but I’ve carried it
far enough to know that we are
dealing with what may be called an
ultimate symbol, a symbol that is
the summation of all symbols. It
has everything in it — ^birth, death,
mating, murder, divine and de-
monic possession, the whole lot — to
such a degree that after you’ve
looked at it, or listened to it, or
made it, for a time, you simply
don’t need life any more,”

The studio was very quiet. The
five other intellectuals looked at
him. Norman rocked on his heels
like any normal college professor,
but his arms grew perceptibly more
rigid as he clasped his hands even
more tightly behind his back, fight-
ing an exquisite compulsion.

“As I say, my studies aren’t near-
ly conclusive, but there’s clearly no
time to carry them further — we
must act on such conclusions as I
have drawn from the evidence as-
sembled to date. Here’s briefly how

125

it shapes up: We must assume that
mankind possesses an actual collec-
tive unconscious mind stretching
thousands of years into the past
and, for all I know, into the future.
This collective unconscious mind
may be pictured as a great dark
space across whfeh radio messages
can sometimes pass with difficulty.
We must also assume that the
drummed phrase and with it the
big splatter came to us by this inner
radio from an individual living
over a century in the past. We have
good reason to believe that this
individual is, or was, a direct male
ancestor, in the seventh generation
back, of Tally here. He was a
witch doctor. He was acutely
hungry for power. In faa, he spent
his life seeking an incantation that
would put a spell on the whole
world. It appears that he found
the incantation at the end, but died
too soon to be able to use it — with-
out ever being able to embody it in
sound or sign. Think of his frus-
tration!”

“Norm’s right,” Tally said, nod-
ding somberly. “He was a mighty
mean man. I’m told, and mighty
persistent.”

Norman’s nod was quicker and
also a plea for undivided attention.
Beads of sweat were dripping down
his forehead. “The thing came to
us when it did — came to Tally
specifically and through him to
Simon — because our six minds, re-
inforcing each other powerfully,
were momentarily open to receive

126

transmissions through the collective
unconscious, and because there is —
was — this sender at the other end
long desirous of getting his mes-
sage through to one of his descen-
dants. We cannot say precisely
where this sender is — a scientifically
oriented person might say that he
is in a shadowed portion of the
space-time continuum while a re-
ligiously oriented person might
aver that he is in Heaven or Hell.”

“I’d plump for the last-men-
tioned,” Tally volunteered. “He
was that kind of man.”

“Please, Tally,” Norman said.
“Wherever he is, we must operate
on the hope that there is a counter
formula or negative symbol — ^yang
to this yin— which he wants, or
wanted, to transmit too — some-
thing that will stop this flood of
madness we have loosed on the
world.”

“That’s where I must differ with
you. Norm,” Tally broke in, shak-
ing his head more somberly than
he had nodded it. “If Old Five-
Greats ever managed to start some-
thing bad, he’d never want to stop
it, especially if he knew how. I tell
you he was mighty mighty mean
and — ”

''Please, Tallyl Your ancestor’s
character may have changed with
his new environment, there may be
greater forces at work on him — in
any case, our only hope is that
he possesses and will transmit to
us the counter formula. To achieve
that, we must try to recreate, by

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

artificial means, the conditions that
obtained in this studio at the time
of the first transmission.”

A look of acute pain crossed his
face. He unclasped his hands and
brought them in front of him. His
pipe fell to the floor. He looked at
the large blister the hot bowl had
raised in one palm. Then clasping
his hands together in front of him,
palm to palm, with a twisting mo-
tion that made Lafeadio wince, he
continued rapping out the words.

“Men, we must act at once, using
only such materials as can be rap-
idly assembled. Each of you must
trust me implicitly. Tally, I know
you don’t use it any more, but can
you still get weed, the genuine
crushed leaf? Good, we may need
enough for two or three dozen
sticks. Gory, I want you to fetch
the self-hypnotism rigmarole that’s
so effective — no, I don’t trust your
memory and we may need copies.
Lester, if you’re quite through sat-
isfying yourself that Gory didn’t
break your collarbone, you go with
Gory and see that he drinks lots
of coffee. On your way back buy
several bunches of garlic, a couple
of rolls of dimes, and a dozen red
railway flares. Oh yes, and call up
your mediumistic lady and do your
damnedest to get her to join us
here— her talents may prove invalu-
able. Laf, tear off to your home
loft and get the luminous paint and
the black velvet hangings you and
your red-bearded ex-friend used —
yes, I know about that association!

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

—when you and he were dabbling
with black magic. Simon and I
will hold down the studio. All
right, then — ” A spasm crossed his
face and the veins in his forehead
and cords in his neck bulged and
his arms were jerking with the
struggle he was waging against the
compulsion that threatened to over-
power him. “All right, then —
Rump-titty -titty •turn - •

MOVING!"

An hour later the studio smelt
like a fire in a eucalyptus grove.
Such light from outside as got past
the cabalistically figured hangings
covering windows and skylight re-
vealed the shadowy forms of Sim-
on, atop the scaffold, and the other
five intellectuals, crouched against
the wall, all puffing their reefers,
sipping the sour smoke industrious-
ly. Their marihuana-blanked
minds were still reverberating to
the last compelling words of Gory’s
rigmarole, read by Lester Phlegius
in a sonorous bass.

Phoebe Saltonstall, who had re-
fused reefers with a simple, “No
thank you, I always carry my own
peyote," had one wall all to her-
self. Eyes closed, she was lying
along it on three small cushions,
her pleated Grecian robe white as
a winding sheet.

Round all four walls waist-high
went a dimly luminous line with
six obtuse angles in it besides the
four corners; Norman said that
made it the topological equivalent

127

of a magician’s pentalpha or pen-
tagram. Barely visible were the
bunches of garlic nailed to each
door and the tiny silver disks scat-
tered in front of them.

Norman flicked his lighter and
the little blue flame added itself to
the six glowing red points. In a
cracked voice he cried, “The time
approaches!" and he shambled
about rapidly setting fire to the
twelve railway flares spiked into
the floor.

In the hellish red glow they
looked to each other like so many
devils. Phoebe moaned and tossed.
Simon coughed once as the dense
clouds of smoke billowed up
around the scaffold and filled the
ceiling.

Norman Saylor cried, ''This is

itr

Phoebe screamed thinly and
arched her back as if in electro-
shock.

A look of sudden amazement
came into the face of Taliaferro
Booker Washington, as if he’d been
jabbed from below with a pin or
hot poker. He lifted his hands
with great authority and beat out
a short phrase on his gray African
log.

A hand holding a brightly-
freighted eight-inch brush whipped
out of the smoke clouds above
and sent down a great fissioning
gout of paint that landed on the
canvas with a sound that was an
exact copy of Tally’s short phrase.

Immediately the studio became a

128

hive of purposeful activity. Heav-
ily-gloved hands jerked out the rail-
way flares and plunged them into
strategically located buckets of
water. The hangings were ripped
down and the windows thrown
open. Two electric fans were turned
on. Simon, half-fainting, slipped
down the last feet of the ladder,
was rushed to a window and lay
across it gasping. Somewhat more
carefully Phoebe Saltonstall was
carried to a second window and
laid in front of it. Gory checked
her pulse and gave a reassuring
nod.

Then the five intellectuals gath-
ered around the big canvas and
stared. After a while Simon joined
them.

The new splatter, in Chinese red,
was entirely different from the
many ones under it and it was an
identical twin of the new drummed
phrase.

After a while the six intellectuals
went about the business of photo-
graphing it. They worked system-
atically but rather listlessly. When
their eyes chanced to move to the
canvas they didn’t even seem to see
what was there. Nor did they
bother to glance at the black-on-
white prints (with the background
of the last splatter touched out) as
they shoved them under their coats.

Just then there was a rustle of
draperies by one of the open win-
dows. Phoebe Saltonstall, long for-
gotten, was sitting up. She looked
around her with some distaste.

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

“Take me home, Lester,” she
said.

Tally, halfway through the door,
stopped. “You know,” he said puz-
zledly, “I still can’t believe that
Old Five-Greats had the public
spirit to do what he did. I wonder
if she found out what it was that
made him — ”

Norman put his hand on Tally’s
arm and laid a finger of the other
on his own lips. They went out
together, followed by Lafeadio,
Gorius, Lester and Phoebe. Like
Simon, all five men had the look
of drunkards in a benign conva-
lescent stupor, and probably dosed
with paraldehyde, after a bout of
DTs.

The same effect was apparent as
the new splatter and drummed
phrase branched out across the
world, chasing and eventually over-
taking the first one. Any person
who saw or heard it proceeded to
repeat it once (make it, show it,
wear it, if it were that sort of
thing, in any case pass it on) and
then forget it — and at the same
time forget the first drummed
phrase and splatter. All sense of
compulsion or obsession vanished
utterly.

Drum ’n’ Drag died a-borning.
Blotto Cards vanished from hand-
bags and pockets, the MeSPATs I
and II from doctors’ offices and
psychiatric clinics. Bump Parties
no longer plagued and enlivened
mental hospitals. Catatonics froze
again. The Young Turks went

RUMP-TITTY-TITTY-TUM-TAH-TEE

back to denouncing tranquilizing
drugs. A fad of green-and-purple
barberpole stripes covered up splat-
termarks on raincoats. Satanists
and drug syndicates presumably
continued their activities unham-
pered except by God and the Treas-
ury Department Capetown had
such peace as it deserved. Spotted
shirts, neckties, dresses, lampshades,
wallpaper, and linen wall hangings
all became intensely passe. Drum
Saturday was never heard of again.
Lester Phlegius’ second attention-
getter got none.

Simon’s big painting was even-
tually hung at one exhibition, but
it got little attention even from
critics, except for a few heavy sen-
tences along the lines of ‘‘Simon
Grue’s latest elephantine effort fell
with a thud as dull as that of the
tubs of paint composing it.” Visi-
tors to the gallery seemed able only
to give it one dazed look and then
pass it by, as is not infrequently the
case with modern paintings.

The reason for this was clear. On
top of all the other identical splat-
ters it carried one in Chinese red
that was a negation of all symbols,
a symbol that had nothing in it —
the new splatter that was the iden-
tical twin of the new drummed
phrase that was the negation and
completion of the first, the phrase
that had vibrated out from Tally’s
log through the red glare and come
slapping down out of Simon’s
smoke cloud, the phrase that stilled
and ended everything (and which

129

obviously can only be stated here
once): ‘‘Tah-r/V/y-mry-re^-toel”

The six intellectual people con-
tinued their weekly meetings al-
most as if nothing had happened,
except that Simon substituted for
splatterwork a method of applying
the paint by handfuls with the eyes
closed, later treading it in by foot.
He sometimes asked his friends to
join him in these impromptu
marches, providing wooden shoes
imported from Holland for the
purpose.

One afternoon, several months
later, Lester Phlegius brought a
guest with him-Phoebe Saltonstall.

“Miss Saltonstall has been on a
round-the-world cruise,” he ex-
plained. “Her psyche was danger-
ously depleted by her experience
in this apartment, she tells me, and
a complete change was indicated.
Happily now she’s entirely re-
covered.”

“Indeed I am,” she said, answer-
ing their solicitous inquiries with
a bright smile.

“By the way,” Norman said, “did
you receive any message at the
time from Tally’s ancestor.?”

“Indeed I did,” she said.

“Well, what did Old Five-Greats
have to say?” Tally asked eagerly.
“Whatever it was, I bet he was
pretty crude about it!”

“Indeed he was,” she said, blush-
ing prettily. “So crude, in fact, that
I wouldn’t dare attempt to convey
that aspect of his message. For that
matter, I am sure that it was the

130

FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION

Utter fiendishness of his anger and
the unspeakable visions in which
his anger was clothed that so re-
duced my psyche.” She paused.

“I don’t know where he was
sending from,” she said thought-
fully. “I had the impression of a
warm place, an intensely warm

place, though of course I may have
been reacting to the railway flares.”
Her frown cleared. “The actual
message was short and simple
enouA:

“‘D^r Descendant, They made
me sto( it. It was beginning to
catch on down here! ”

In Memoriam: Henry Kuttner

{Los Angeles, 1914 — Santa Monica, "February 4, 1958)

Tomorrow and tomorrow bring no more
Beggars in velvet, blind mice, pipers’ sons;

The fairy chessmen will take wing no more
In shock and clash by night where fury runs.

A gnome there was, whose paper ghost must know
That home there’s no returning — that the line
To his tomorrow went with last year’s snow.
Gallegher Plus no longer will design
Robots who have no tails; the private eye
That stirred two-handed engines, no more sees.

No vintage seasons more, or rich or wry.

That tantalize us even to the lees;

Their mutant branch now the dark angel shakes
And happy endings end when the bough breaks.

KAREN ANDERSON

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